How does this sound / read?

Hi,

Made this post and was given some suggestions there:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176867

So I came up with this text to explain what happens at my store in terms of order processing and shipping. Fine Art Prints are very expensive to produce and I don't want to make a bunch of prints up that people may not want to buy, becasue if I did, and they didn't sell, well I'd have to pay for the printing cost somehow and that would mean that I would have to roll the cost over into other items I sell to clients to make up for it. This is something that I don't want to do and I don't think that my client's want to do either.

I came up with the following for my website - does this text sound reasonable to you?

Quality Takes Time

This section explains a little about how my business runs in relation to your orders and the products I have.

I have two distinct product lines:

"Ready to Go" and "Fine Art Prints" (A Custom Order).

**Ready to Go **

These are items such as greeting cards, invitations, calendars, etc. They can easily be identified by the quantity levels in the store - usually I have more than five (5) on hand at any given time.

When you order these products they are usually shipped within a week.

Fine Art Prints

These items are to be treated as a Custom Order.

The normal “in stock” level is set to one (1) - this could mean that I currently could have one in actually stock or zero on hand.
( I have to have a minimum quantity of one (1) in order for you to order the product online.)

Since I am a perfectionist when it comes to the quality of my work, ordering one of my ‘Fine Art Prints’ works as follows:

If I already have a print on hand, your order is shipped right way - usually within a week. I already have a finished print on hand to send you and have already inspected it for quality and shipping preparation. If you see more than one (1), this is an indicator that I have some extra prints already ready to go.

**If the item is not on hand, this is a Custom Order **and I print it as you order it. When I receive the order, I print your artwork on demand and examine it very carefully to ensure that there are no flaws in the work. I repeat this printing process until the work is deemed ready for shipping - again usually within a week to two weeks depending on the volume or works I have to print.

Your order once ready, is then shipped out to you.

If you have ordered "Ready to Go" items and "Fine Art Print" together on the same order, then they will both be shipped at the same time together to avoid confusion.

**Fine Art Prints are VERY EXPENSIVE to produce. **

By operating the Fine Art part of my business in this fashion, I can keep my costs down (by not having unwanted inventory) and thus ultimately your costs (since you don't have to pay for the inventory inside my shop). If you do see some Fine Art Prints where the product is over one (1) - it is usually because that item is a popular selling item and I can therefore increase the turn around time of getting that product to you faster.

I hope this helps you understand the process I use and why I use it.

I produce a very high quality product and try to get it to you as fast as I can while at the same time keeping your cost and my expenses down to a minimum thus saving us both time and money.

janissaire:

Hi,

I hope this helps you understand the process I use and why I use it.
.[/INDENT]

Makes sense to me

thanks a lot

Tighten it up a bit - it's too wordy. Here's the kind of change I would make:

paragraphs 2 and 3 under Fine Art Prints:
The normal “in stock” level is set to one (1) - this could mean that I currently could have one in actually stock or zero on hand.
( I have to have a minimum quantity of one (1) in order for you to order the product online.)

Since I am a perfectionist when it comes to the quality of my work, ordering one of my ‘Fine Art Prints’ works as follows:

suggested rewording:

The normal “in stock” level is set to one (1) because the cart requires a quantity of 1 or more for you to order the product online. However, I may or may not actually have stock on hand.

The process of getting one of my ‘Fine Art Prints’ to you is as follows:

I don't remember where, but you can change your settings so that you do not need to show an item in stock to add it to the cart.

Configuration > Stock > Allow Checkout
Allow customer to checkout even if there is insufficient stock

Right saw that option of allow client's to order but - what if I just want to have an item sell out and not order anymore (ie. I don't want to carry that item any longer) how would I keep them from going over my stock quantity?

I'm afraid it's either/or - you can allow out-of-stock orders, or not.

You might be able to write some custom code to override that for specific products.

It might work to put a note in the description of any products you want to discontinue that supplies are limited to what is in stock, and back orders will not be processed.

Hey I like that idea of saying Back Orders will not be processed!

Thanks a lot!!

Any way to make it appear as BOLD red in the product description?

Just wrap that part of the description in a <div class="warning">The Text </div>

then in the style sheet:

.warning {color:#FF0000; font-weight:bold;}

Thanks will look into setting it up :smile: