Selling personalised products

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14Steve14
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Selling personalised products

Post by 14Steve14 »

My daughter has set up a small business that sells personalised hand made products and currently sells through Instagram. I am trying to persuade her to have a website but before committing she wants to know if its possible to sell personalised products using Phoenix. Options and attributes could work but with many options it may get too complicated.

I think it should be if I can find a way of having the customer upload an image during the checkout process.

Also does anyone know of a payment method, or a way of delaying payment until the product is completed before taking payment. Not all payments will need to taken this way and some will need taking as soon as the order is placed. She currently accepts payment through PayPal but is also look into Stripe and I cannot see a way of with holding payments with either of those, but I have asked the question of their support pages.

Does anyone here sell personalised products, or do they have a way to upload images during checkout. If not I will contact one of the developers to get a price,

Any advice welcome.
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by heatherbell »

14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:48 amI cannot see a way of with holding payments with either of those, but I have asked the question of their support pages.
A quick look at the Stripe Addon shows that it already has the option to Authorize or Capture payments (2 Step Payment).
Paypal integrations can be coded to use 2 Step Payment although the Paypal Standard is currently coded for only 1 Step (Capture).
14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:48 am Does anyone here sell personalised products, or do they have a way to upload images during checkout.
For a number of years we sold products with an option to personalise - the option to add text, font and images were all shown as options but we used the simple method of informing customers to email us with that information after ordering. In fact, customers liked that method as it immediately set up a personal dialogue and increases customer confidence but obviously depends on your individual products and business model.
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by 14Steve14 »

Thanks for the suggestions. We are just passing a few ideas around at the moment hence the question.

I did look into the Authorise or Capture settings but think that it may be better to have it set to capture, as there will be other items on the site for sale. Having to authorise all payments will only put people off from buying I think. We don't really want to charge customers of the personalised products until it can be confirmed that the product can be made, otherwise it could mean refunds.

I am getting an email together to send to a few of the certified developers to see if there is anything they can do to get a way for an image to be attached during the checkout process. This will only need to be available for the personalised products. Once that is received, emails will be sent as confirmation of the product.
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by heatherbell »

14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 11:48 amHaving to authorise all payments will only put people off from buying I think.
Not sure what makes you think that. A number of our suppliers use authorise and only capture once dispatched and as a customer, I am only aware of that by looking at the dates of payment on a bank statement.
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by Dan Cole »

heatherbell wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:45 pm
14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 11:48 amHaving to authorise all payments will only put people off from buying I think.
Not sure what makes you think that. A number of our suppliers use authorise and only capture once dispatched
I do it exactly that way and it allows you to adjust the captured amount (assuming it's less) which allows me to account for out of stock and unavailable items. Works a treat and I wouldn't do it any other way.

Dan
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by 14Steve14 »

Dan Cole wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:06 pm
heatherbell wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:45 pm
14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 11:48 amHaving to authorise all payments will only put people off from buying I think.
Not sure what makes you think that. A number of our suppliers use authorise and only capture once dispatched
I do it exactly that way and it allows you to adjust the captured amount (assuming it's less) which allows me to account for out of stock and unavailable items. Works a treat and I wouldn't do it any other way.

Dan
@Dan Cole Dan

Silly questions as I have not come across a B2C website that does it this way.

When a payment is captured its all done straight away. Emails are sent and the customer knows the payment has been made and the order has been taken. Money is transferred from one account to the other and the order is completed. Any downloads are made available.

With the authorise method I take it the customers gets no order confirmation email until the payment is confirmed, which could be up to a day later. Certainly most will be done at the end on the day. Downloads would not be available either. Does the customer get any site or payment processor emails before the payment is authorised to let them know what is happening?

Edit Added - What may be a better way of doing this is to not have a buy button on the personalised products, and have something else that works as a contact us link instead. Then everything can be done away from the website and an invoice is sent to the buyer once the item is complete from the payment processor, which can be done via Stripe or PayPal similar to what is already being done on social media.
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by Dan Cole »

14Steve14 wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 2:49 pm With the authorise method I take it the customers gets no order confirmation email until the payment is confirmed, which could be up to a day later. Certainly most will be done at the end on the day. Downloads would not be available either. Does the customer get any site or payment processor emails before the payment is authorised to let them know what is happening?
No...they get an order confirmation right away....the only thing that's different is the card is authorized but not captured on the processors end...meaning you can adjust it and decide when it's actually processed. The authorization is valid for up to 30 days and then expires. I find it also helps if I'm drop shipping an item. I send the order to the supplier and if they are out of stock and the item isn't going to be available for awhile I can always void the authorization as well. It is also possible that I have stock with a short expiry date and don't wish to ship it. It is just a flexible option that works in my situation.

Your downloads would be handled as they are now (whether the card is authorized or captured is between you and the processor) but you'd have the added task of marking the payment to be captured. What is best for you would depend on the nature of your business...if you were only doing downloads or always had stock capturing it right away would likely be your easiest option.

Dan
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by raiwa »

I started some time ago to revamp the old option type addon which allows on option/attribute base to type custom text and upload images for personalized products. It's maybe half done, but I'm very busy now and do not know when I'll find time to finish this.
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14Steve14
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Re: Selling personalised products

Post by 14Steve14 »

raiwa wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 7:50 am I started some time ago to revamp the old option type addon which allows on option/attribute base to type custom text and upload images for personalized products. It's maybe half done, but I'm very busy now and do not know when I'll find time to finish this.
Thanks for the information.
Dan Cole wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 1:57 am
No...they get an order confirmation right away....the only thing that's different is the card is authorized but not captured on the processors end...meaning you can adjust it and decide when it's actually processed. The authorization is valid for up to 30 days and then expires. I find it also helps if I'm drop shipping an item. I send the order to the supplier and if they are out of stock and the item isn't going to be available for awhile I can always void the authorization as well. It is also possible that I have stock with a short expiry date and don't wish to ship it. It is just a flexible option that works in my situation.

Your downloads would be handled as they are now (whether the card is authorized or captured is between you and the processor) but you'd have the added task of marking the payment to be captured. What is best for you would depend on the nature of your business...if you were only doing downloads or always had stock capturing it right away would likely be your easiest option.

Dan
Thanks Dan. I have changed the settings on my website Stripe module and carried out a few test purchases. In a way it sort of does what we would like it to, but makes other areas, such as the downloads and non personalised purchases worse for customers.

Currently thinking along the lines of finding a way to restrict the payment method to certain products, then could have a standard payment for standard products (Stripe) and a restricted authorise type payment (Paypal) for the personalised products. Doing that way as Stripe is lots cheaper than PayPal.
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