You want to place an order but the shop is closed...

Pikka

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding the buyer's experience when my Lego shop is closed. We will be going on vacation for a week or so and won't be accepting any new orders during that time. If a buyer tries to check out with an open shopping cart while the shop is closed, they will receive a message that the shop is temporarily closed, right?

I'm curious about your thoughts on this situation. As buyers, what do you typically do when you have gone through the tedious process of adding items to your cart, only to realize that you can't place an order because the shop is closed for vacation? Are you frustrated or do you understand that the seller is taking a break? Do you check back on the seller's storefront to see when the shop will be open again or do you move on to other sellers? Also, does a buyer with an open store cart receive an update when that particular shop reopens?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

Pikka

Malnaborg

For me, it sounds like (again) the question about knowing what those carts hold.
At the moment i have 12 open carts, but no one how bought from my store for 2 weeks now.
Again i am not the biggest store, and go a lot for sets, which might not be as attractive as parts.

But never the less, it would in my view be of so much help to know what people are looking at or might want to buy. And as you write, WHO is about to buy from the store.

I my self, have only closed down my store 1 time, when i was on a 3 week vacation, i do believe i had some carts going, but none the less i closed down.
Yet again, it would be a very nice service to write out to those, telling them of the situation.
Also because i do not think buyers read our front page of the shop. Since when buying, you can go straight to checkout, never seeing the page of the shop, or any info written there.

For instance, and a little off topic, i have had coupon codes listed on my front page, yet people buying without using those codes.

So all in all, i do really think we need some kind of communication tool with our "potential" buyers, both as a service, but also just for a general improvement of our store.

Pikka

Thanks for the insight @Malnaborg. It would be helpful to notify buyers with open shopping carts when a store is about to close and for how long it will remain so. This would allow them to decide whether to place their order quickly or wait until the store reopens. As sellers, we don't need to know the identities of potential buyers, as an automated message could be sent to notify them of the store's closing time and duration.

Malnaborg

Well at the moment, i do not think it is possible to set a specific time for closure of our stores, only open or close.
With this however, i do not know of the cart holders will get a notification WHEN the store is closed, but then anyway it would be too late.

This could may be something for @Lawrence to look at, or tell how it works as of now !?

Pikka

Sure, it's not possible now, but I meant it as a suggestion on how to solve the problem.

One_Click_Off

Again, your “Tagline/Slogan” is visible at any time including when opening a cart. If you simply use this text line to put either that your shop is closed or use it to put a closing period both prior to and during closure your customers will be informed. An aside: for those who have Rebrickable enabled, your shop comes up in searches for parts even when it is closed. Unless you have “closed” somewhere in your tagline those potential buyers may navigate to your store, resulting in a visit count.
For coupon codes it is also advisable to put the code and conditions on this tagline as it is then viewable at any page or cart view.
🙂

Calibrick

I like the suggestion of "being able to set a close time and reopen time" and then the system auto-messaging those with open carts with something like "X store is temporarily closing on X/X/2X and reopening on X/X/2X; BO noticed you have an active cart with that store and wanted to advise you as active carts are not part reservations" or some such. Is that what this kind of boils down to, @Pikka? If so, I would def upvote that - sounds super-useful!

And maybe a diff message if no reopen date is set: "X store is closing on X/X/2X - the reopen date is not known at this time. BO noticed you have an active cart with that store and wanted to advise you as active carts are not part reservations". ??

Calibrick

@Pikka by the way, if I got it right (or change it to what you want, if not), then I would repost just the suggestion under suggestions so it would be clearer for folks to vote on maybe? If I interpreted it right, I think it's a fantastic idea!

Pikka

@Calibrick Yes, that's the gist of it! Thanks for developing the idea further. As a seller, I may have a different perspective than buyers, so before I post my suggestion in the Suggestions forum, I want to hear from buyers first. For example, is it okay to auto-message buyers with open carts, or would that be considered spamming? I personally would like to know if any of my favorite shops is going to close, but maybe that's just me being biased as a seller.

leopard37

Unfortunately I could see the ability to message open carts being abused and I'm sure all buyers don't want junk mail from abandoned carts. However it would be supremely handy if you could set a future closure date and that show up when people are adding to a cart so they could tell that they have to order soon if they want it before the closure.

Emporiosa

+1 - I love the idea of better "vacation" or store closure communication. There's no good way to let folks know right now and especially when I anticipate a closure, I'd love to let them know in advance.

I update my main store page (which I'm currently closed for the week), but you still get folks that contact after the fact saying they had a cart and if there's a way they can place an order anyways to lock in the items etc. That's a whole other issue though (password bypass).

Calibrick

I don't think we as sellers would have the ability to do this, it would be the SYSTEM that does the messaging. Maybe the proposal should have constraints to avoid abuse, e.g., the store's close dates (start/end) must be a minimum of 6 days or such such?

lotsofbricks

If I'm going to be away for a week or so, I usually do this:

change dispatch time to the highest number of days, add a note to the store page, and send a reminder message that shipping will be delayed to any customers who place an order.

This way, the store can stay open and customers have the option to buy if they're willing to wait.