B2B Portal important requirements
I can see this being a great platform but there are so many things that need to be added. I have listed them below.
- A proper navigation bar with drop down menus. It makes it easier for customers to search for things.
- Show items that are out of stock but not make them available for purchase
- Provide a customisable receipt that look professional and are not just text-based emails
- Provide customisable notifications in general; as above, to look more professional
- The ability to send test notifications without having to turn it on.
- Increase the types of parameters available to add to notification emails.
- The ability to have a default email address contact for shipping and billing and not just 'one for all'.
- Notify customers when items are back in stock.
- Separate notifications- ie just turn on ones for the store.
- Simple 'contact us' form would be great. Emails can be redirected to that of our choosing.
- Less confusing, cleaner matrix/list layout for products with multiple options.
- Include tax amount in product price
- Display tax amount at shopping cart
- Have a message that says 'shipping fees will be calculated on next page'.
Yes! I will second almost all of this list. We find that certain things in particular are confusing for many customers:
1. Drop down menus could mirror more typical eCommerce environments, increasing ease of use.
2. We are desperate for this function! We do not want to allow backorders, but whenever a product disappears from the B2B, customers think we have discontinued it entirely. It's very confusing for people.
5. We would also greatly appreciate the capability to test notifications prior to turning them on. Currently, we try to set up new notifications during times that our B2B will get low-traffic, and test them using a "demo customer." This is really not ideal.
6. We would LOVE to send different notifications depending on price tier and payment terms. This would smooth out SO MUCH for us and our customers.
7. It would be extremely helpful if we could specify a default billing email to send invoices and order details to AP/bookkeepers, and a default shipping email to get tracking information to buyers/receivers.
11. YES! Our customers are so confused by the current matrix layout on the B2B and it requires us to explain how to order certain products frequently.
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Additional to all of this:
During the check-out process, it would be ideal to have the Payment section be the customer default. It's been another chronic point of confusion for our customers.
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Yes yes yes! I would love to be able to set different payment options for different customers. Ie: one of the sites we operate would have an 'on account' option for their purchases but other sites (like a franchise) would have 'stripe' only.
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Thanks for your suggestion
Thanks DEAR,
I've made some comments on your comments:
1. A proper navigation bar .... This is work in progress
Brilliant!
2. Show items that are out of stock but not make them available for purchase. Use 2 settings on B2B page : Allow Backorders - No , Show Available Quantity - Show In/Out of Stock
Sorry, I was trying to use this for products we build to order as I'd like to display them and allow people to place orders, but then they would also be able to place orders for products we are waiting to receive more stock of. I understand that this is a very specific request and not all users might need this.
3. Provide a customisable receipt that look professional and are not just text-based emails. All receipts are customisable and can be edited in notification module. You can use html to create templates as per your preferences
There is no receipt option in your notifications section neither in the B2B section nor the Sale section. The closest thing you have is the notification 'full payment received' which does not provide much in customisation. Yes, I can use HTML to adjust the formatting but when it comes to pulling data from a sale using the parameters provided, I can't even provide a link to any documents. In Australia, we must provide a receipt or proof of purchase for any purchases over $75 and it must include the following information:
Any receipt or proof of purchase you give your customers must include:
-Your business name and Australian business number (ABN) or Australian company number (ACN)
-The date of supply
-Details on the product or service
-The price
One way to fix this would be to allow the Stripe integration to work with DEAR and send the receipts through to customers. They already have a receipt template set up with most of the information. Or, allow us to create a receipt template that can be linked as a parameter in the notifications setup.
4. Provide customisable notifications in general; as above, to look more professional. See above
Not everyone can customise emails using HTML, it's not easy. Drop and drag would be nice.
5. The ability to send test notifications without having to turn it on. Please elaborate. E.g. what screen should have 'Send Test Notification' button and what data should be included in notification message
All of the notifications in the automations section should have the ability to send a test without having to turn the notification on. Eg: I set up the 'Full Payment Received' notification and would like to send a test email to see what the subject field and email template looks like and if any links, images etc show up and work as expected.
6. Increase the types of parameters available to add to notification emails. Happy to add. What parameters do you need?
More options of document and email templates to link in the notification email body. The ability to select which template to include a link of from the ones created. I thought of more but that's the only one coming to mind at the moment.
7. The ability to have a default email address contact for shipping and billing and not just 'one for all'. Is that on B2B checkout page or DEAR customer contact details tab ?
It would be great if it were located in both, so that the Portal could pull this email address from the customer's profile in DEAR and the customer could update that email when necessary. It would be great to have a 'type' section under Contacts in the customer's profile so that you could select 'Default For Type'. Eg: Billing/Shipping/Business. Something like that, that would match what is in the Addresses section.
8. Notify customers when items are back in stock. So customer should specify what item(s) she/he is interest in and get notification when item back in stock? Would 'My Favorites' section do the job if we add special flag 'Notify me when My Favorites back in stock' ?
Yes, that would be great!
9. Separate notifications- ie just turn on ones for the store.
Mainly have 'order has been shipped', 'payment received + receipt', 'order has been picked', 'order has been packed', added to the list of notifications that can be turned on under the B2B Portal section under notifications, and not lumped in under 'sale'. We put through complicated orders manually that the client does not need to be specifically notified about.
10. Simple 'contact us' form would be great. Emails can be redirected to that of our choosing.
11. Less confusing, cleaner matrix/list layout for products with multiple options. Please give an example of less confusing design. Happy to adjust
Just a couple of drop down boxes and a qty field. See image attached12. Include tax amount in product price. Tax rules are defined at customer level, every tax rule has tax inclusive/exclusive flag. Price tier used for B2B portal should be ether tax inclusive or tax exclusive.
Thanks for clarifying.
13. Display tax amount at shopping cart. Tax amount already is separate field on checkout page
Ok
14. Have a message that says 'shipping fees will be calculated on next page'.
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"Show items that are out of stock but not make them available for purchase"
This is an essential function for our company.
As noted in previous comments, hiding out of stock products causes confusion and extra work for us and for customers. We need to have the option to show out of stock products without allowing orders.
'Coming soon' products should be orderable up to the quantities on the loaded purchase order, then turn out of stock and stop orders.
7. We set up contacts for each customer to route specific information - billing, shipping, etc. - however the B2B portal automatically uses the contact information for the user placing the order via B2B.... It would be helpful if the system automatically sent information to the appropriate contacts. At the very least, the sales order should populate the contact information for the DEFAULT contact - not the B2B user. This would greatly help our billing process!
Additional:
- Customers should receive automatic order confirmations via email. If changes need to be made to their order from our end, we should be prompted with an option to notify the customer of this change via email
- It would be nice if we could add a banner at the top of the B2B portal for us to remind the customers of important announcements (ex: new product launches, warehouse holiday hours and order deadlines, shipping delays, etc.)
7. We set up contacts for each customer to route specific information - billing, shipping, etc. - however the B2B portal automatically uses the contact information for the user placing the order via B2B.... It would be helpful if the system automatically sent information to the appropriate contacts. At the very least, the sales order should populate the contact information for the DEFAULT contact - not the B2B user. This would greatly help our billing process!
Additional:
- Customers should receive automatic order confirmations via email. If changes need to be made to their order from our end, we should be prompted with an option to notify the customer of this change via email
- It would be nice if we could add a banner at the top of the B2B portal for us to remind the customers of important announcements (ex: new product launches, warehouse holiday hours and order deadlines, shipping delays, etc.)
- we should be able to add service items to the B2B catalogs