Online Stores

Some schools wanted to be able to sell stuff on their website so we created the Online Store module. You can have as many Stores on your website as you want, but most schools will only want one. When you create an Online Store you give it a Name, Description, Currency, Address, Phone Number, Fax Number and Email Address:

Add a New Online Store

When you store has been made you can click on it to start adding Categories and Items. Let's add a Category:

Add a New Shop Category

Now lets add an Item to the Category:

Add a New Shop Item

You give your Item a Name, Description and a Price. If your Item is physical you need to enter how many you have in stock. Each Item should have a unique Code. If you have an Image of the Item you can upload that also. Finally, you can indicate whether the Item is virtual or physical, whether it's currently available, and whether it's exempt from sales tax.

Now that we have an Item in our Store we just need to double check a few things. In the Store view we can edit the Tax settings:

Store Tax

The Tax setting is set for the New Zealand GST system by default but if you are from another country you can change this. You can also edit the Shipping Locations:

Shop Shipping Locations

Here you can add as many Locations as you like. If you only want to ship to New Zealand you could just add one location called 'New Zealand' and give a price to ship products to this destination. This would prevent people purchasing Items when they are overseas as they would be required to enter a valid Shipping Location. You could even split New Zealand into 'North Island' and 'South Island' and give different shipping prices for each. Finally, you can manage Payment Methods:

Shop Payment Methods

There are 4 supported Payment Methods:

  • Payment on Pickup - This allows people to pick up their orders from the school. They won't be charges shipping on this payment method. You can enter an address from which they can pick up the goods.
  • Credit Card Over the Phone - This allows people to do exactly that, pay you via credit card once they've submitted their order on the website. You can enter an phone number for them to call.
  • Bank Transfer - This allows people to place their order and then transfer the money to pay for the order via Online Banking. You can enter a bank number here for them to pay the funds to.
  • Credit Card Online via DPS - You can have your customers enter their credit card numbers securely on your website and Spike@School will verify the numbers instantly via your subscription to DPS New Zealand and record their order if the payment is successful. You can enter your DPS Username and Password here.

Now that we've set up our Store we can browse to it on the website:

Front Shop Opening Page

You'll first be presented with the Categories of your Store. You can click on one of them to see the Products.

Front Shop Items

You can then add a product to your Cart by clicking Add to Cart. You'll be taken to the Cart view:

Front Shop Cart

You can then tweak quantities here, or proceed to the Checkout:

Front Shop Customer

After entering your customer detais you can proceed to the payment page:

Front Shop Payment

From here you can confirm your order and it will be added to the Orders list in the Shop admin system. The user will be told that their order was successful and they will be emailed an Invoice plus shown one on the screen:

Front Shop Invoice

You'll then be able to click Manage Orders in the Store admin system. This shows you all the incomplete orders you can then View each order individually:

Shop Order Details

The Order viewing page shows you all the info on what was purchased and at what price. From here you can enter a Memo about the order and change its status depending on what has happened with it regarding payment and shipping.

That's basically it! We designed the Online Store module to be as simple as possible because most stores we've seen are exactly the opposite. It's everything you need to run a basic Store from your school.

Let's jump over to the Profiles...