Back-end Admin Changes That Make a Difference

G'day,

For more than a year now I've had lat9 helping us to make improvements to our online dive shop at www.scubadoctor.com.au/diveshop.

While there have been a LOT of changes, it's been interesting finding out what seems to make a real difference to the business and what is just nice to have.

Some of the back-end admin changes we've made that have really worked are:

Australian Tax Invoices

Many years ago we modified the invoice option in admin to display an invoice that complied with the Australian Tax Office requirements. We'd print out a copy and include it with orders we ship.

Problem: Customers whose purchases were shipped by a supplier direct to them didn't get our tax invoice. Some would ask for one. We'd generate a PDF of the invoice and email it to them. A manual and time consuming process.

Of course the standard order confirmation emails we'd send out had a link in them saying customers could access a tax invoice. But the link actually took them to the Order Information page, and what was shown there didn't comply as a real tax invoice.

So first we added the option for customers to access the real tax invoice from the Order Information page by clicking on a Tax Invoice button.

Then we changed the Order Confirmation and Order Update emails to have links to the real tax invoice page as well.

Result: Happier customers and not one request for a tax invoice since making the changes.

Admin Order Confirmation Emails

We print and use the admin version of the Order Confirmation emails as we process orders. Notes are written on them. Shipment tracking information is recorded. Eventually they are filed as our paper record. We also cut and paste stuff from the admin order confirmation emails to create the emails we send to suppliers to order a direct shipment.

Problems: These emails would typically print out over two pages. Information was ordered in an inefficient way. It was easy to make mistakes while processing orders.

So we changed the layout of the admin version of the order confirmation emails. Now a typical order only takes up two thirds of a printed page, and very few orders go over a page.

We rearranged information so that it was far easier to cut and paste it into supplier order emails.

We highlight in red non-standard information. Examples include: customer comments, product quantity if not one, payment method if not PayPal, shipping method if not our standard option.

Result: Saving heaps of paper. Much easier to process direct shipment orders. Way less picking, packing and shipping mistakes being made. Happier owner and staff.

Shipping Labels

Most of our shipments go out in Australia Post satchels. When they don't, we need to print out a shipping label. So we'd cut the shipping address from the admin order confirmation email and paste it into a MS Word template, make changes if required, and print the label.

Problem: It was a time consuming process that took us out of Zen Cart.

So we added a Shipping Label page along the lines of the Tax Invoice and Packing Slip pages in admin. It mimics our MS Word label layout.

Result: Producing a shipping label is now a really simple process that takes heaps less time. Happier staff.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

Must attend to these on my sites.

An example of the shipping label.

You can see examples of the tax invoice and admin order confirmation email at https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?218494-Customer-Facing-Shop-Changes-That-Make-a-Difference