How do I Use the Group Deal Feature?

With Shift4Shop, merchants can now offer group deals to their shoppers. Similar to Shift4Shop's Daily Deals feature, Group Deals can also be a great way of driving traffic and business to your store by offering a special type of promotion which actively expires at a set time-frame – which you specify.

However, as an added incentive to sell MORE products, the rules you set in the group deal allow you to specify a minimum amount of sales that need to occur on the product, before the deal itself is honored. If the minimum quantity is not met, then as merchant you can decide whether to concede and honor the deal or otherwise refund/cancel the orders altogether.

As with Daily Deals, the expiration of the Group Deal can be a great way to add urgency to the offer and let shoppers know they should act while they can. Furthermore, due to the unique minimum quantity setting of the Group Deals, you can also drive more visitors to your store since your customers will likely share the deal with their friends in order to meet the quota.

In this guide, we will show you how to enable, configure and manage your Group Deals, as well as how it will look on your store front.

Enabling the Group Deal Feature

The first step in our process is to enable the Group Deal feature. To do this, use the following steps.

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

1. Go to Modules.

2. Look for the "Group Deals" module and click on its + icon to expand the selection.

3. You will see both a checkbox to enable the feature as well as a link to "Change Settings."

4. Click on the "Change Settings" link.

The Group Deals Settings page will contain the following items:

• Deal Expiration
  This option will control the lifespan of your Group Deal. The selectable options are hourly increments (1 to 24 hours) to daily increments (2 to 30 days).

• Starting Time
  Use this dropdown menu to select which time of the day your deals should start.

• Enable Group Deals Checkbox
  Use this to turn the feature on or off as needed.

• Send Email to Buyers
  This setting will send an automated email to your group deal buyers advising them of how far the deal is from reaching its minimum goal. The email will also contain sharing links to the deal encouraging recipients to share the deal with their friends. Leave the percentage field set at 0 to disable this feature.

• Send "Share the Deal" emails
  Enabling this checkbox will send an immediate email to your group deal buyers advising and encouraging them to share the deal with friends to help reach the minimum goals.

• Widget Script
  This is the code which you will place on your site that will link your shoppers to the group deal product.

Additional Information
There are two versions of the widget script. One will be for use on your actual Shift4Shop store. It will be labeled "(for this store)" while the other script will be used for external sites.

We will cover the widget code and its placement in just a bit.

Adding your Group Deal Products

Before enabling the Group Deals feature, you'll need to specify products for your promotion. To do this, please click on the View Deals button. The button is located at the top right of the Daily Deals Settings page.

5. Click on the View Deals button.

Here's where you will be able to add your products and configure their respective group deal parameters.

6. Click on the +Add new button located towards the top right.

A separate pop-up window will appear where you can search for your products.

7. Once you have found the product for your deal, click its Item Name or go to the far right and select its respective Action > Select button.

8. Once item(s) are selected, click on the Close button to proceed.

Fine Tuning the Group Deal

Now that you've selected your Group Deal products, you'll need to configure the specifics of your deal offering. Your Group Deal products will be listed with the product ID and Name as well as the following:

• Sale Price
  Enter the sale price of your Group Deal item here *required

• Free Shipping
  If you'd also like to offer Free Shipping on the Daily Deal product along with the sale price, mark this box

• Sorting
  Use this field to control how the products are listed in the Daily Deals section of the Online Store Manager. This can be useful for merchants who want to have a rotating list of daily deal offerings and sorting would help display these in a more cohesive fashion.

• Status
  This link will determine whether the Daily Deal is active. When Active, the deal will say "Active" and it will be in bold green text. When deactivated, the deals will simply say "Activate." Only one deal may be active at a time.

• Min Qty
  Here's where you will designate the minimum number of orders for the item that need to be purchased before the group deal price is honored.

Adding the Group Deal Widget

The next step in our process is adding the Group Deal Widget to your page. This widget will act as the main display for your deals. It's essentially the banner that notifies your visitors of the group deal's presence. The widget can be placed in practically any page of your site, but we recommend placing it prominently on your home page. The following instructions will detail how to add the widget to your home page.

First, let's copy the widget code. From your Online Store Manager:

1. Go to Modules.

2. Look for the Group Deals section.

3. Click on Change Settings.

Copy the "Widget Script" code by selecting all (CTRL-A) and copying the selection (CTRL-C).

Now, let's paste the code.

1. Go to Content > Titles & Content.

2. Look for "Home Page" (It's under the "Main Pages" heading).

3. Click on the Action > Edit button to the right of Home Page.

4. Paste the copied widget code into the "Header" section of the Home Page.

5. Click Save Changes at the top right.

Alternative Widget Placement

Instead of placing the widget on the home page, an alternative idea would be to create an extra page on your site. The page would be specific to your daily deals (Content > Site Content). So taking it from step 3 in the previous section:

1. Go to Content > Site Content.

2. In the Menu Links section at the top, click Add New Link.

3. Name your menu link and specify its sorting options as desired.

4. Click Add.

5. Now Click Content on your new menu link page.

6. Add the widget code to the "page content" area of this page instead and save.

How it Looks

Now that you've enabled the Group Deals module, configured your products, and added your Group Deals widget coding, let's have a look at the finished results!

When your shoppers reach your site, they will see the widget prominently displayed on your site showcasing your group deal. Visitors will see the widget with a thumbnail of the product, the savings percentage of the deal, the deal price, an automated countdown timer showing them specifically how much time is left on the deal, as well as information regarding the minimum quantity that needs to be sold for the deal to be honored.

Furthermore, when the shopper clicks on the product image or "Get it Now!" button, they will be taken to your product's main listing page, which also will contain the same basic information described above.

Advanced – Customizing the Widget

The Group Deal widget uses a special listing template in order to display your Group Deals in a manner that is visually appealing and attention-grabbing. However, if you'd like to edit the template, you may do so by copying the gd_widget.html from your account's common folder (assets/templates/common -or- assets/templates/common-html5 if using an html5 theme) and placing it onto your own theme's specific folder.

Customizing the Listing Template

As well as the widget template, Group Deals will also use a special listing template for your Group Deal items. This template is named listing_gd.html and is also located in the common folder.

Reviewing your orders

As mentioned, Group Deals is similar in nature to the Daily Deals feature in that your deals are offered for a limited time. However, unlike Daily Deals, the Group Deals feature also includes the provision that a specific number of orders must be placed before the deal is honored. If the minimum quantity is not met within the deal's lifespan, then you – as a merchant – can determine whether to fulfill the deal or otherwise refund/cancel all of the orders collected thus far. Once the minimum is met, however, the regular order processing you're accustomed to can be done.

Orders for the group deals will be placed in your regular order manager queues as new orders. However, since these are also occurring while your regular orders are processing, it might be difficult to find the group deal orders in the regular order manager queues.

Therefore, we've also made it so you can review the Group Deal orders from a special location so you can see how the deal is progressing and process orders accordingly.

To view your Group Deal Orders, log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager and:

1. Go to Modules.

2. Look for the Group Deals section.

3. Click on Change Settings.

4. Now, click on the View Deals button as before.

You will now see all of your existing Group Deal items on the list, as well as a "View Orders" link for the deals that have had orders placed.

Viewing orders from this special page will allow you to process the orders as needed – from one central location.