Customer groups, and a minimum order

What a group is

• Trade and Public are still your two kinds of customer. A group sits under one of them: Schools under Trade, a Christmas club under Public.
• A customer is in one group at most. Everyone starts in none, and for them nothing changes.
• A new group changes nothing by itself. It is the same as Trade, or Public, until you change a row on its page. So you can make a group and put customers in it before deciding what it is for.
• Nothing changes in Velocity. Groups are Order-Point's own.

Make a group

1. Open Groups

   In your admin centre, go to Customers and press Groups at the top of the page.

2. Press Add a group

   Give it a Name, and say whether its customers are Trade customers or Public customers. That choice cannot be changed afterwards: a group only ever holds one kind of customer.

3. Press Add group

   The group's own page opens, ready for its rules and its customers.

These are the real screens, with a made-up shop.

Say what the group can order

The group's page has a row for each of your order types, under What this group can order. Each row asks two things.

Each Same as choice says what it comes to, such as Same as Trade: can order, so you never have to go and look. Press Save when the rows are right.

Put customers in the group

1. Press Add customers

   On the group's page, under Customers in this group. The list is your trade customers for a Trade group, and your public customers for a Public one.

2. Tick the ones to add

   Search by name if the list is long. A customer already in another group says so, such as In Care homes: adding them moves them, because a customer is in one group at most.

3. Press Add to the group

   The button counts them for you: Add 2 to Schools.

• To take customers out, tick them in the group's list and press Take out of the group. They go back to no group.
• One customer at a time is quicker from the customer's own page: open them from Customers, go to Group and order rules and choose their Group.
• When your staff add a new customer on the ordering site, the New customer form offers Group once you have a group of that kind.

A group only takes its own kind of customer. To put a trade customer in a Public group, mark them public first: tick Member of the public under Account on their page. A customer whose kind changes leaves a group of the other kind.

Set a minimum order

A minimum is the least an order has to come to before it can be placed. You can set one in three places, and the nearest one to the customer wins.

• Asked of says which orders the minimum is for. Delivered orders only lets somebody under it collect instead. Every order holds collections too.
• It is measured on the order's total as it stands when it is placed. Items sold by weight are cut to about the weight asked for, so if the invoice comes in a little under, nothing happens.
• The order type's card lists the groups that are different, after Different for. Press one to open that group.

If your prices are hidden from customers, a minimum can still be set but nobody is held to it on the ordering site. The page says so wherever you set one. It comes into force when you show prices, in Settings.

What your customers see

• An order type that is not theirs is not offered. They never see it, so there is nothing to explain.
• Under the minimum, they are told how far off they are. The basket says so as they shop, and the checkout says it in full: The minimum for delivery is £50. Yours comes to about £38.20, so £11.80 to go.
• Place order waits until the order is big enough. Add to the order takes them back to your products.
• Or collect it instead is offered when the minimum is for delivered orders only and they could collect.

When your staff place the order

The rules are for customers ordering for themselves. Your own staff, taking an order for a customer, are told and can carry on.

• Staff are offered every order type. One the customer cannot place themselves is marked Not usually open to this customer.
• They are asked once. If the order is under the minimum, or of an order type that is not the customer's, pressing Place order asks Place it anyway? Press Yes, carry on.
• The order says so. In your admin centre the Orders page marks it Under minimum or Not their usual type, and the order's own page says by how much and who placed it.
• A repeat order is never held back. If one comes in under the minimum it is placed, and marked the same way. A customer is held to the minimum when they set a repeat order up.

Give a group its own sign-up link

A Public group can have a link of its own, for a poster, a post or a message. Somebody who signs up with it becomes a customer in that group straight away, instead of in no group.

1. Open the group

   From Customers, then Groups. It has to be a Public group: everyone who signs themselves up is a public customer.

2. Press Make a sign-up link

   Under Its own sign-up link. The link and its QR code appear. Nothing is open until you press this.

3. Share it

   Copy the link into a post or a message, or put the QR code on a poster. Whoever follows it sees You're joining Christmas club and signs up as usual.

4. See who came

   The group's page counts the sign-ups, and the Sign-ups page shows the group's name beside each one.

• It is its own switch. The link works whether or not your ordinary sign-up page is switched on, so you can take club members and nobody else.
• Switch the link off when you are finished with it. Anyone who follows it afterwards is told it is no longer in use. A link you make later is a new one, so an old poster does not start working again.
• If you approve sign-ups by hand, somebody from a group's link waits on the Sign-ups page like anyone else, and joins the group once you approve them.

People who sign themselves up collect their orders, so the link takes nobody while collection is switched off in Settings. The group's page tells you when that is so.

Questions