Taking Orders Online
When online ordering is on, your store page grows a cart and a checkout. A customer builds an order, and instead of landing in your register, they get a QR code to show you or message you. You scan it, check it, and ring it up yourself. Nothing reaches your register without a staff member putting it there. That is deliberate: it is your till.
Before you start
- Your store is shown online.
- The Preferences · Modify permission.
Steps
Open your storefront settings
Go to Configurations → Preferences → Storefront.
Switch on Allow online ordering
Turn on Allow online ordering and tap Save. Your store page immediately gains a cart, a checkout, and an Order now button. Your menu, hours, and contact details stay exactly as they were.
The Allow online ordering switch turned on — screenshot coming soon
Decide whether to require a mobile number
Require a mobile number at checkout is off by default, and for most stores it should stay off. The customer is not placing the order. They are showing you a code, so by the time an order exists you are already face to face. A required field on the way in mostly turns away people who would have bought. Turn it on if you routinely call orders back before preparing them.
The Require a mobile number at checkout switch — screenshot coming soon
Decide whether to require a last name
Require a last name at checkout and booking is also off by default. One switch covers both your online checkout and your booking request form.
The Require a last name at checkout and booking switch — screenshot coming soon
Check your store page
Open your store link. The menu now shows add-to-cart buttons and a checkout. Turning the switch off later stops new orders at once, because the switch is read fresh on every checkout. The browsing page can take a few minutes to update.
Keeping the menu honest
A customer who orders something you cannot make has to be told twice, once by you and once by the refund. So your store page says why an item cannot be ordered.
| What they see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sold out | You track stock for it and you are out. |
| Unavailable | You switched it off. |
| From 5:00 PM | It is outside its serving hours and comes back today. |
| From Wed 11:00 AM | It comes back later this week. |
| From Oct 1 11:00 AM | It comes back more than a week from now. |
| No longer available | Its serving schedule has ended and was not renewed. |
| No label at all | They can order it. |
Each label comes from something you already control: switching an item off (or marking several unavailable at once), serving hours per item or as a shared schedule, and stock at zero at your sale location. Switching an item off always wins over its serving hours. Changes show on the store page within about a minute.
What the customer sees under the code
Before you scan it, the customer's page shows their order code and up to three blocks under What happens next:
- Send your code: buttons for WhatsApp, SMS, email, and Messenger, with the code already written in.
- Pay here: your own payment accounts, so the customer can pay before you ring them up. Paying here is never required.
- Find us online: your contact details and social links.
What happens next
- Customers get an order code (QR) and a live page that updates when your staff load their order. See Receiving Customer QR Orders.
- Once the order is created, the customer's page becomes a live receipt: every item with options, the money, what they have paid, and where the order is up to. For a pickup, the collection code appears once the order is ready, not before.
- They can share or copy the link, so the person collecting does not have to be the person who ordered.
Edge cases
- Ordering needs the store shown online. With Show my store online off, ordering is refused even when this switch is on, and the Preferences screen does not say so.
- Drafts expire after 24 hours if nobody loads them, and are deleted a week later. They never appear in your order list on their own.
- A closed store can still receive an order with no time chosen. Opening hours stop a customer picking a pickup or delivery time while closed, but an order sent with no time is accepted at any hour, and checkout gives no closed notice.
- With online ordering off, a customer with a saved cart who opens the cart or checkout sees that you are not taking online orders right now, with a link back to your menu.
- A stale cart is checked before the customer presses the button. The checkout names the item that is no longer available and why, and will not place the order until they fix it.
- Each item must still be active, in stock, and served now, with valid options. Prices come from your live catalog, never from the customer. Delivery needs an address.
- The status card for a draft still shows after you hide the store or turn off live status.
- Two times, two owners. The customer's requested time is theirs and you cannot edit it. Your estimated time is the promise. Set it in the register's Service mode sheet, the same place you enter a delivery fee. The customer's page then shows Estimated delivery or Ready by, never both.
Works with
| Add-on or plan | What changes on this page |
|---|---|
| Any plan | Online ordering is free, including on Basic. |
| SMS add-on | Add the estimate to a text with the {{ estimatedTime }} placeholder in Configurations → SMS → Message templates. It is blank when you have not set one. |
| Payment methods | Only methods marked Show on storefront appear under Pay here. See Adding Payment Methods. |
| Serving schedules and stock | They decide the labels in the next section. |