Thinking about creating an order form that you can use to collect information and process sales? Because of how important it is, you need to make sure that it contains the right elements so that you can process each sale without any difficulty.
At the same time you don’t want to include elements that aren’t necessary and make it more complicated to fill out the form. Simply put the less elements that are present in your form, the more sales you will be able to make.
If you want to know which elements are essential to an effective online order form, there are several that should be at the top of the list:
- Full Name can be used both when communicating with the customer and when processing payment. It may be best to split it into First Name and Last Name to avoid any confusion.
- Email Address is compulsory as it will provide you with the means to communicate with your customer. Typically you will want to send an order confirmation, and may want to provide further updates on the order status down the line – such as when it is shipped out, issues with the order, requests for feedback, and so on.
- Delivery Address will be important for physical products that need to be shipped out. It is best to split it into several fields for the Unit Number, Street Address, City, State, Country, and Postal Code – to make processing it easier. However this element can be skipped for digital products as the download link (or the product itself) can be sent via email.
- Delivery Options are normally for physical products as well, and will let the customer select how they want their product delivered. It may include options such as self-collect, or may be limited to different delivery services and express delivery options.
- Product Details can include the Quantity as well as other product options such as the color, size, design, and so on. The exact product details that you will want to collect will vary depending on the products you sell and the variations that are available.
- Payment Details can take on many forms. The most common nowadays is to integrate it with online payment solutions such as Paypal, though at times you may want to provide other options such as check, bank transfers, and cash-on-delivery.
See how each of these elements will let you collect important information to process any sales that you may make? As you’ve probably noticed there are some that may or may not be required in certain cases – which is why you’ll have to tailor each online order form to the product that you’re selling.
It should be noted that aside from making sure you collect the necessary information, you need to also decide on the workflow to process sales. That may require further customization to make sure that each order’s details are sent to the right place so that they can be immediately processed.