The Shop on your website

When your church sells things through HoW’s store, your public website has a Shop page at /shop (for example www.yourchurch.org/shop). Anyone can look at it, and anyone can buy from it by card, without signing in. Members can still sign in and buy in the member portal, as before.

What visitors see

For each product on sale:

• its picture, name and description;
• its price, or “From $20.00” when its options (sizes, colours) cost different amounts;
• the options it comes in, such as “Small, Medium, Large”, with “(sold out)” after one that has run out;
• Sold out when nothing of it is left;
• a Buy button.

Visitors never see how many are left, what anything cost you, or who has bought what.

What happens when someone chooses Buy

Buy opens the product’s own page on your website. There the visitor:

1. chooses the Option (when it comes in more than one) and the Quantity;
2. chooses Pick up at church or Ship to me, as your Store → Settings allow (with your pickup note, or your shipping rate);
3. gives their name and email;
4. chooses Continue to payment and pays on Stripe’s secure page, into your church’s own Stripe account. When they ship, Stripe asks for the address. When your church collects sales tax, Stripe adds it there.

Stripe then sends them back to your website, which says their payment went through. Stripe emails a receipt when your church has receipts switched on in your own Stripe dashboard.

The page also offers Have an account? Sign in to the member portal, for members who would rather buy there. If your church has its own member sign-in address and prefers it (Settings → Sign-in addresses), that link opens it.

What you see

The order appears in Store → Orders like any other, with the buyer’s name followed by “(guest)” and their email until HoW finds them in People. Once the payment goes through, HoW looks for one adult in People with that email and the same first name; if there is nobody, and nobody by the same full name, it adds them (their timeline starts “New from an order in the website’s Shop”). Otherwise the order stays a guest’s, and nothing is merged. You hand it over, ship it and refund it exactly as a member’s order (see Store orders).

Holding stock

What a visitor chose is held from the moment they choose Continue to payment. If they leave Stripe’s page without paying, it goes back into stock within about an hour.

Before it works

• Your church must be ready to take payments in Settings → Payments (see Connecting Stripe). Until then, each product’s page says “Online payment isn’t set up yet. Please contact the church to pay another way.” and shows no pay button.
• A product whose way of reaching people your church does not offer (for example shipped only, while shipping is off) cannot be ordered online and says so.

How to put Shop in your website’s menu

The Shop page is there as soon as your store is open, but it is not added to your menus by itself. In Website → Menus, add a link with the label Shop and the address /shop, then publish the menu. If you already have a page of your own at /shop, the Shop page takes its place while your store is open in HoW.

How to hide a product from the website

The website shows exactly what the member portal’s Shop shows. To take a product off both:

1. Open Store, then Products, and choose Edit on the product.
2. Switch On sale off (or switch off Sold in the member portal’s Shop for something only sold with an event).
3. Choose Save product.

Removing a product takes it away too. The website catches up within about 30 seconds.

Limits

• A visitor buys one product at a time (up to ten of one option). Members can fill a cart in the member portal.
• To stop misuse, one address can start five payments an hour, one email three, and your whole website sixty.
• The Shop page lists up to 100 products, in the order you set in Store → Products.
• If your church chose Our Shopify store or No store under Store → Settings → Where members shop, your website has no HoW Shop page. A page of your own at /shop is shown instead, if you made one.
• With no products on sale, the Shop page says nothing is for sale right now.
• A section of products on your other pages (“Store collection” in the page editor) is not available to add yet; the Shop page is where visitors see your products.

What DCX support can do

DCX support can check that your church has the store turned on and Stripe ready, see whether a product is on sale, look up a payment that has not shown as paid, and look at your Shop page with you. Support cannot buy on someone’s behalf or change your prices.