Custom Orders: Requests for Made-to-Order Items

Overview

Orders → Custom orders lists requests for items you make or personalise to order: who asked, their email address, what they want and their budget. For each request you record where it stands, and you can email the buyer your price with a note. Once a request has a price, you can turn it into a draft order with a pay link, or an order.

Custom orders are part of the Growth plan and above. Anyone on your team who can see orders can read the list. Changing a request, or turning it into an order, needs the owner, admin, manager or staff role.

How requests arrive

From your product pages. Tick Made to order on a product (under Sustainability & ethics when you edit it). Its page on your store then shows a Request a custom order button. The buyer gives their name, email address, what they would like and, if they want, a budget, and the request arrives here linked to that product. Products not marked Made to order show no button.

From a form or tool of your own. Send the buyer's details to your store's request address: a POST to /api/rfq on your store's own domain, with a JSON body like this:

{
  "customerName": "Jane Doe",
  "customerEmail": "[email protected]",
  "description": "A walnut sign, 60 cm wide, with our family name",
  "budget": "150 to 200"
}

• customerName, customerEmail and description (up to 4,000 characters) are required. budget (up to 60 characters) and productId are optional. A productId that is not one of your products is dropped.
• One internet connection can send five requests an hour, and your store takes up to 200 an hour in all.
• A hidden field catches automated form-fillers: their requests are thrown away.
• On a plan without custom orders, the address answers "not found" and the button does not appear.

Each new request also appears in your notifications as New quote request.

The list

The cards at the top count Total requests, New requests and requests Awaiting reply (the ones marked Quoted). Each request shows the buyer's name, email address and the date, its status, the first lines of the description, the budget and the price you quoted.

A request is New, In review, Quoted, Accepted, Declined or Converted (turned into a draft order or an order).

Respond to a request

1. Click the message icon on the request.
2. Write a Note to buyer if you want to, and enter a Quote price, in your store's currency.
3. Click In review, Send quote, Accept or Decline. The note and the price are saved with the status you click.

Send quote needs a price. It marks the request Quoted and emails the buyer, from your store's own email address, your price, your note and a short reminder of what they asked for. They reply to that email to go ahead. Each click sends it again, so a corrected price reaches them too. The other buttons email nobody.

The quote email is sent only from your store's own sending address. If you have not set one up yet, or the buyer's address has bounced before, the quote is saved and the page tells you the buyer was not emailed.

For a quote the buyer can accept and pay online in one step, use Finance → Quotes (see Quotes and customer invoices).

Turn a request into an order

When a request has a quote price above zero, Convert to order appears. It finds the customer by the request's email address, or adds them to your customers, and then makes one of two things, in your store's currency:

• A draft order with a pay link, when the request came from one of your products and your plan includes B2B accounts. The draft has one line: that product at the quoted price. Open B2B accounts → Draft orders and click Send link to give the buyer their pay link (it needs Stripe connected). When they pay, the draft becomes an order like any other.
• An order awaiting payment otherwise: the quoted amount, the request's description in the order's note, and no product lines. Collect the payment yourself.

Either way the request becomes Converted and the conversion is recorded in the audit log. Nobody is emailed. A converted request cannot be converted again, and its status and price are fixed; change the draft order or order instead.

Common questions

Can a shopper send a request from my product pages? Yes, from any product you mark Made to order. See "How requests arrive" above.

Does the buyer see my note? Yes, when you click Send quote: it is in the quote email with your price. Saving it with another button keeps it for your team only.

What currency is a converted order in? Your store's base currency, the one your quote prices are entered in.

Can I undo a conversion? Cancel the order from its page, or cancel the draft order under B2B accounts → Draft orders. The request stays Converted.