Videos and Webinars

Place a Phone Order

There may be times when you need to process an order for your customer manually rather than having them navigate through your store to place the order. The reason could be that the customer has visited your brick-and-mortar store or perhaps they are having trouble accessing your site due to random Internet connectivity issues. Whatever the reason, you can process the order for your customer manually directly from the Online Store Manager itself. We call this feature a "Phone Order."

To place a Phone Order:

Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager and, using the left navigation menu:

  1. Go to Orders > Phone Order.

  2. Select your customer by either searching for an existing customer record or creating a new one. Click on the Customer's Name to proceed.

  3. After the customer is selected, click Continue (on the bottom right) to proceed to the item screens.

  4. Select the order items. You can also add new products and search for individual items as needed.

5. Once the item is added, you can add more items (by clicking on the Items tab or otherwise review the order as necessary. You can also place a manual discount on the order or use an existing Gift Certificate or Promotion code on the order.*

To avoid this possibility, it is usually best to create discounts on phone orders using the coupon code field instead.

6. Select the shipping options available and click Continue to proceed.

7. Enter the billing method and then click Checkout to place the order.

8. The invoice's Referrer detail will show the order as a Phone Order.

Once the order is placed, an invoice is created as usual. In essence, a phone order is no different than an order placed on your site's storefront. However, without having to do the normal navigation, it may be more efficient for you as a merchant.

Custom Prices

Shift4Shop also allows you to set custom prices on items when placing a phone order. As you add items to the phone order, you can set the price manually to be a discounted (or increased) price as needed before completing the order.

This option is not automatically enabled but you can enable it with the following steps:

  1. Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager.

  2. Using the left navigation menu, go to Settings > General > Store Settings.

  3. Once there, click on the General tab.

Within this page, you will see a series of checkboxes and settings. Look toward the bottom of the page's left area and you will see a section labeled "Other Options."

4. Place a mark in the checkbox labeled "Allow Phone Orders Custom Prices."

5. Click Save at the top right of the page to commit your changes.

With this setting enabled, the price display on the products (when placing a phone order) will be featured as an open text field which will allow you to edit the price of the item as needed. You can then complete the phone order and it will honor this custom price for the item(s) on the order. (Subsequent phone orders will revert back to the item's default price after completing the altered phone order.)

With this setting enabled, the price display on the products (when placing a phone order) will be featured as an open text field which will allow you to edit the price of the item as needed. You can then complete the phone order and it will honor this custom price for the item(s) on the order. (Subsequent phone orders will revert back to the item's default price after completing the altered phone order.)

Additional Information
Please be aware that the custom price function will only work on Phone Orders and only when placing them from the Online Store Manager interface. If you try to use the previously mentioned "Browse Store" link, it will not be allowed if you are using the Phone orders Custom Price setting.

Also, be aware that promotional discounts set with either of the "Excluded Items" option settings (in the promotion rules) will not work with phone orders when the custom price setting is enabled.

Also, note that the Discount function only works on the phone order interface. It will not apply to the order using the browse store link either. For discounts on Phone Orders that you'd like the customer to complete on the store, please consider using the Apply Coupon option instead.