Retail Order

A retail order is a fast sale, built for the quick transactions of an outlet counter or an online store rather than the full quotation-to-invoice cycle of a business sale. It captures the customer on the spot, records payment, and feeds fulfilment, in one streamlined document made for volume.

Anatomy of the screen

A retail order has tabs for the Order, Processing, Delivery, Conversation, History and Data. It carries a code, date and status, its source (an eCommerce site or an outlet), an optional point-of-sale reference, and either a linked retail customer or the buyer's details captured inline (name, mobile, email, address), with a separate delivery address.

How it behaves

Built for speed

Two things set it apart from a business sales order. It records its source, so you know whether a sale came from a shop or a website, and it can capture the customer inline rather than requiring a pre-existing customer record, which is exactly right for walk-in and online trade. It runs New, Active, optionally Hold, then Complete, with Cancel available.

Fulfilment and payment

A retail order links to deliveries for shipping its goods and to payment receipts for the money taken. For online sales it also carries a sync record tying it back to the originating store order, so the web sale and the Cloudby order stay matched.

Worked example

An order placed on your WooCommerce store syncs in as a retail order, with the shopper's details captured and a payment receipt recorded from the gateway. You raise a delivery to ship it, and the store is updated as it is fulfilled.

Edge cases and good practice

• Retail, not sales order, for counter and online volume; reserve the sales order for business deals.
• Inline customer capture suits one-off shoppers; link a retail customer for repeat buyers.
• Let the source travel so channel reporting is accurate.

Related

• How to: Take a retail order
• Reference: Retail fulfilment
• Reference: eCommerce