How to set up a retail item

When an item is set to retail, online customers will see ‘Buy’ buttons instead of ‘Book’ buttons. When a customer clicks ‘Buy now’ they will be taken straight to the book form to purchase the item. Dates will be disabled so they will not have to choose a date. Click here for an example.

Learn how to set up a retail item below. If you’re setting up gift cards, read the full gift card process here.

Create retail customer type

• Create one or more customer types to align with the retail item the client wants.

• Remember that the name entered here is what will be shown to the online customer. Example below.

  

Create item

Create a new item like you normally would, but make sure you update the following settings:

• Turn off automatic customer notifications. Select an item for editing > go to Notifications > Customer Notifications and uncheck all boxes.

• Display as a retail item. From the item’s Listing settings, go to the Basic Info section and check the box [FH admin only] Display as a retail item.

  

• Set online booking cutoffs to -24 hours. From the item’s Bookability settings, adjust the middle column to auto close -24 hours before the availability start time. This ensures availabilities are never closed off.

• Uncheck the two checkboxes in the “Include in online calendars as ‘Call to book’ when closed” column for no bookings and 1+ bookings.

• Set “Start showing number of seats left when there are only” to zero.

  

Create availabilities

• Availabilities should be all day.

• Best practice is to set up daily, weekly, or monthly availabilities, depending on how the client wants to run their reports.

• Be sure to add the appropriate customer type(s) that should be visible on the availability.

Create custom calendar

This is optional, but highly recommended. By creating a custom calendar for retail items, clients can easily distinguish between their bookable items and retail items.

When creating a custom calendar for retail items, use the grid view with Columns: none, Rows: none, and Groups: none to show only 1 availability on the calendar instead of 7. This can be helpful for client usage down the road.

In the example below, a custom calendar has been set up specifically for merchandise.

Notes

• When making a direct booking for a retail item, logged-in users should generally choose the availability for the same day/week/month that the item is being purchased. The rest of the direct booking process should remain the same.

• These settings can also be used for event-style items (for example, specific performances or classes that only occur once). As a result, online customers will be able to “buy” the event and bypass the calendar (which wouldn’t be useful since the event only occurs once).