Looking for insight from anybody with experience/knowledge about selling individual products through Draft Orders, then adding custom shipping rates to specific orders, and then creating the invoices for payment.
I want to know if I can coordinate with a customer before purchase, take the product they want to buy to a carrier to get a quote for the shipping cost, then add the shipping cost to the Draft Order and invoice them to check out through Shopify.
Reason for this: I am an amateur artist starting store on Shopify. Majority of my sales are made at local art shows within 2 hours from home. Often people contact me days after the art show and want to purchase a piece. Many of my pieces are large, heavy and fragile so I often coordinate to meet a customer and personally deliver the piece… to avoid high packaging and shipping costs.
If I use Shopify’s traditional payment process, customer will get charged shipping and I then have to refund shipping fees. I don’t want to advertise Free Shipping, b/c if person from out of state makes a purchase I want them to be charged the calculated shipping. Thanks for any help.
Hi, @scottcreed !
Thanks for reaching out in our Community Forums and for sharing your concern, I’d be happy to help.
Congratulations on starting out with Shopify, and I appreciate you for sharing all of those details. In short, it’s absolutely possible to communicate with a customer before the purchase, create a draft order with a custom shipping rate, invoice the customer and collect the payment through Shopify. To get started, you will want to have a section that allows your customers to reach out to you. Whether that’s through a Contact Us page, Shopify Inbox, or through a third party method, that’s up to you. Based on your conversation, you will want to obtain the order and customer information that will allow you to create a draft order. Once you do so, you will be able to obtain your quote and insert your custom shipping rate for the order. Finally, you can send the invoice and checkout link to the customer.
If you would like to opt for the traditional payment process, setting up pickup and local delivery is another great way to speed up your fulfillment time and create a better experience for your customers. When customers are close to your business, you can offer unique, local methods for them to receive their products. More on this can be found on this help document here.
Once you’re able to set up your order process, I’d love to chat with you more about your business! I see you’re a new community member and it sounds like you may still be in the process of setting up your store. If you’re interested, we have some great resources to help you get started. For instance, you can check out our Shopify Store Launch Checklist as this provides a methodical approach to ensure that everything on your store is optimized for conversion. What stage are you at in setting up your store?
Please feel free to let me know here if you need any further assistance.
You asked what stage my new store set up is in. I paid a Shopify Expert to set it up. She did ~okay~ job… it took 6 months ?.. and finally launched last month. She had the calculated shipping set up, but it was not practical to my products, so I am STILL trying to set that up.
I sell art… some pieces are large 5’ x 2’ wall mirrors. The majority of my sales are going to be local (in State of Ohio) so coordinating local delivery is 1) easier for me and 2) cheaper for customer. UPS will charge almost $100 just to box my mirrors b/c they require custom made packaging. So, I asked the question about using Draft Orders, which you responded to.
My question is how to communicate on my store that Mirror purchase will be completed through individual invoice? My mirrors are listed on my site in their own Collection. I want to show their price and description… but have the customer contact me through my Contact Page to coordinate the purchase using an invoice (that I will create through a Draft Order). Things I am trying to accomplish are these:
communicate that mirrors are sold through direct invoice
customers should contact me through Contact Page to coordinate this and get shipping quote
this will allow me to communicate with customer, explain the draft order/invoice process and allow me to get quote from UPS on shipping costs.
then customer can decide on paying for shipping or coordinating personal delivery/pickup with me.
I’m happy to hear that you were able to launch your store, but I understand that you are still setting up a few parts of your fulfillment process. I can walk you through the process of removing the Buy Buttons and adding a Contact Us button for specific products so that your customer can get in touch with you. This can be done by creating and assigning a product template to each product you desire.
To begin, follow these steps:
Go to the theme editor by clicking on the navigation menu at the top of the page and scrolling down to “Products”.
Click on “Create Template” to create a new template.
Hide the Buy Buttons by clicking on the eye icon on the left-hand side of your screen.
Add a new block called “Custom Liquid” and enter the following lines of code:
Adjust the position of the block to be under the Title.
Click “Save” and go back to your Admin.
Head to your Product Page and assign the template under the “Online Store” section. To speed up this process, you can select all of the products, open the bulk editor, and add the template column.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions or need additional assistance.
But it doesnt send an invoice. The customer has to checkout and pay before they get the invoice. Most of our customers (Govt depts) require an invoice to pay and then we send the goods.
On the draft orders, where it says payment terms, why cant shopify add " payment before dispatch" makes no sense how shopify have set it up. We have been using shopify for around 10 years now and that is our biggest frustration