Did you know you can create custom order forms using the Form Builder?
It’s easier than it looks!
*EDIT (6/4/16, 10:30AM): By popular demand, I've also created a custom photography package form!
You can absolutely use the Form Builder to create custom order forms for just about anything, even photography packages. It's pretty slick.
Check out my bakery: Holly’s Bakery!
Before I made this form, customers had to call in their orders. But that took a long time. And customers felt weird giving their credit card info over the phone. Also sometimes the order got goofed up when they called in. (It’s noisy in here!)
That was really embarrassing.
But now our busy bakers have more time to bake! It’s faster and more secure. There's no miscommunication about orders. Plus, we always spell names correctly ;)
So how is it done? All it takes a little know-how and planning.
Start By Planning Out Your Form
Before you get too far, really think about all the things you need your form to do – and in what order! (It helps to actually draw your form on paper before diving in.)
- Can customers order more than one item?
- Are products different prices?
- Are there add-on options that cost extra?
- Do some products have options that others don't?
By answering these questions now, you'll save time in revisions later.
How To Set Up Prices
Setting up prices for products and services is easy.
Just click "Advanced" and select the option you want to edit. You'll see an "additional fee" box, where you can enter the item's price.
If you have limited quantities of items, you can set that up here, too. You can also set up conditional fields – we'll cover that next.
How To Make Conditional Fields
What’s a conditional field? It’s a question that only pops up if certain conditions are met.
Here's a conditional field in action:
Neat, huh? Prices are hidden until someone selects a cake. Then they can pick their size. No sweat!
You can even configure your conditional fields to make more than one thing happen per click. Like this:
Once someone selects their cake shape, a whole bunch of options pop up. I just set each choice to display only the questions relevant to the client’s specific order.
Making conditional fields like this is also easy!
Hit “Advanced” and go to the answer you want to make special. Then you can pick all the other fields you want to pop up when someone makes that choice.
It’s like making a bunch of mini-forms in one :)
Here's a peek at what the form builder looks like from the back:
Cool, huh?
How To Get Paid
Now that you've set up your forms, it's time to get paid! Add your payment block, so your customers can pay for their order right on the form.
When you configure your payment block, you'll be able to enter a base price, add tax, charge shipping, and even offer digital downloads!
Voila! Customers can now pay for their order directly on the form.
You get a copy of their order, and the customer gets a nice email confirmation sent immediately to their inbox.
More Tips!
- Remember to mark required fields. You don’t want an order to come through with missing information!
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Your form doesn't have to be this complex. Just know that if you need to deep-dive into a very custom order, the system can handle it.
- If you think your form is too long, look for opportunities to use conditional fields to keep your form short.
We can also help you set up your custom order form! Just give us a call at 866-463-7620 and we'll be glad to help out.
6 Comments
Jun 6, 2016, 11:39:43 AM
Holly H - Hi Victor!
No worries, we’ll give you a call and we can do a walkthrough on how to build the form the way you want it. Our support team is here to help!
I’m really glad you commented – you got me thinking about doing video walkthroughs on how to set up different kinds of forms! Then everyone can see how different forms can be put together in real time.
Thanks again, Victor!
Jun 6, 2016, 9:18:39 AM
Holly H - Hi RD!
Give our team a call at 866.463.7620, we can pop in a background image for you!
Later this month, we'll release a big update that will make it super simple to style your forms (and change the background) through the front-end builder. We can't wait! :D
Thanks for reading!
Jun 4, 2016, 4:31:48 PM
victor logan - Hi, I'm interested in building up some custom order forms, but I'm having a hard time understanding how to put them together.
Jun 4, 2016, 3:08:34 PM
RD - Hi there - I LOVE this custom form! I would like to implement an image behind the form like in the above example in our studio's forms. Who can assist us with this? TIA!
Jun 4, 2016, 11:05:45 AM
Holly H - Hi Jenn!
Great question: You can absolutely use the Form Builder to make a custom photography package order form!
Check out this one I whipped up!
https://blog.photobiz.com/form/a-la-carte-prints
It's based on the A La Carte offerings on your site. With something like this, you customers could order and pay all at the same time. No special tricks, I'm just using the capability of the form as-is.
To have a little MORE fun, I built a pretty intense order form for all the other items on that page, too!
https://blog.photobiz.com/form/keepsakes
It ended up being reeeeeally long, though. So I used conditional formatting to hide the nitty-grittty details of each product until a customer wanted to see more.
In this case, though, it's probably better to use the online store for all these products. You'll have more selling options, inventory control, and you can add images of your products, too.
ABOUT PAYMENT:
If you want to accept payment on the form, you'll need to make sure it includes a payment block. (It's in the library of blocks at the bottom of the form.)
Once you pop that in there, you can click into the block to set up the online payment processor of your choice – like PayPal, Stripe, iTransact, Payjunction, and others. It takes just a minute, but once you've set up your payment processor, it's saved in the system for all future transactions.
If you don't want to set up an online merchant, you can still make sales and take orders using the form! When you get an order, you'll just send the customer an invoice using the Invoicing tool that you already have. They'll get it via email, and they can pay you on your own terms.
Hope this helped! I'm really glad you asked this question. I'm sure a lot of other users were wondering the exact same thing!
If you have more questions, you can always call us at 866.463.7620, too and we'll be happy to help!
Have a great day, Jenn!
Jun 3, 2016, 7:07:02 PM
Jenn - Could you use this for photography? Maybe packages. Also do you have to have something set up with a company for payments?