Online Store and Point of sale (POS)

Activity Messenger allows you to set up an Online Store. Like traditional E-Commerce stores, the Activity Messenger Online Store has a shopping cart and a checkout process where clients can pay by credit card.

You can also turn it into a Pro Shop to sell products at the counter. It has its own Point of Sale (POS) allowing to take in person cash payments. You can integrate a Stripe Terminal to take in person credit card and debit payments (Interac in Canada).

Merchandise in your Online Store are the same Products you may have already created and sell through Payment forms.

# Online Store

The Online Store runs in your Microsite on a dedicated page. Click on the Design mode button to add and modify merchandise in your store.

Products can be categorized using tags. From the Admin portal, click on the E-Commerce menu, and choose option Products to create and assign tags, and to further organize your Online store. Click on the Microsite button to test your Online store.

From the admin portal you can configure your Online store by pressing on the button with the cog icon.

On the Microsite page tab you can change the name of the store or page. You can also change the permission to access the page. For example, only grant access to people with a password. Consult the Microsite page properties to find out more.

The Categories tab allows you to define which categories (identified by tags) are visible to clients and administrators. You can for example allow admins to sell more merchandise in person and keep them hidden from clients.

The Payment tab allows you to specify payment methods clienst can use to purchase online. If you keep Offline, they will need to pay in person. If you set to Credit card, they will pay via Stripe. In Canada, you can take Interac E-Transfers.

The Client form tab allows you to configure the checkout form. It is presented before payment to capture the account owner's name and email, along with any other type of information you required. For example a consent with eletronic signature.

Checkout forms can be access by clicking on the E-Commerce menu, and chossing option Checkout forms. You may configure multiple checkout forms and use them for different merchandise. Checkout forms are very similar to Payment forms but are dedicated to the cart checkout of your Online store. Note that during checkout, only one form will be presented to the client.

The Communication tab allows you to configure the confirmation email template that will be sent to the account owner after purchase. You can also configure the cancellation template in case of a refund. Consult the Templates help pages to find out more.

Activity Messenger can notify you or other administrators when a purchase is made. While you build your online store and test it, you may force Activity Messenger to send confirmation and cancellation emails to a specific address.

The Stripe Terminal allows you to link up Stripe Readers to take in person payments. Consult the help page Stripe Terminal to learn more.

# Client purchase experience: Cart and Checkout

Your Online store is just like a traditional E-Commerce store. Clients add merchandise to a shopping cart and then proceed to checkout. The checkout process consists of 4 steps:

1. Shopping cart
2. Your information (checkout form)
3. Payment
4. Confirmation

Before the last payment step, the checkout form is presented to the client.

# Point of sale (POS)

The Activity Messenger Point of Sale adds extra functionality to the Online Store. For the administrator the shopping experience is the same as clients however there are additional orange buttons and actions in each checkout steps.

On the Shopping cart step the administrator can modify the cart item prices, change the cart expiration time and preview the final invoice.

On the Your information step the administrator can toggle the Client switch to bypass the checkout form by making a Counter purchase. Useful when capturing the name and email address is not pertinent. They can also switch to another checkout form to capture different information.

Or, they can choose a client from their database to make a purchase on their behalf.

On the Payment step, the admin can choose another payment method. For example to take cash or allow the client to pay later.

If you have a Stripe Terminal, you can take payments by credit/debit card in person.

Finally, on the Confirmation step the administrator can email an electronic invoice to the client.