Shopify merchants can now create orders and accept credit card
payments through the Shopify Admin, making it easier to sell wholesale,
take orders over the phone, and more.
Order creation was designed for businesses that need the flexibility
to create custom orders. This new tool makes it easy to build orders in
Shopify using existing products, new line items, one-time discounts, and
customizable shipping rates. Plus, it allows you to save and track
draft orders from Shopify’s new Drafts section.
When you’re done building a new order, just click Email invoice or
Pay with credit card to process payment. Email invoice sends your
customer a customizable message along with a link to a pre-filled
checkout, and Pay with credit card lets you type your customer’s credit
card and billing information into your Shopify Admin.
How Two Penny Blue Uses Order Creation to Sell Wholesale
Two Penny Blue, a luxury fashion boutique, now uses Shopify’s order
creation to sell wholesale and take phone orders. Before they could
create orders in Shopify, Two Penny Blue found it difficult to take
wholesale orders, and instead had to rely on their accounting system and
spreadsheets.
“We’re a multi-channel business with a retail location, online store,
and wholesale but we had no way to easily track inventory levels across
all three,” said Katelynne Egley, Director of Sales at Two Penny Blue.
Shopify order creation allows Two Penny Blue to keep all their order,
sales, and inventory data in one place. This helps them avoid the extra
work that comes with managing more than one system. Everything can be
done in Shopify, saving them hours each week.
To create an order, log in to your Shopify Admin, go to your Orders
page, and click Create Order. Once you’ve created your order, you can
email an invoice or accept credit card right from the Shopify Admin. You
can also mark orders as Paid if you’ve already accepted payment or as
Pending if you're expecting a payment at a later date. To review past
orders click Drafts, which you can find in the Orders section of the
left navigation menu.
Order creation is available to all merchants but only those using
direct payment gateways can process credit cards through the Shopify
Admin. If you’re using Shopify Payments, we’ve removed any additional
fee for manually processing credit cards from your Shopify Admin or
Shopify POS. Now, the rate to manually process a credit card is your
regular online rate.
Taft produces unique handmade clothing, footwear, and accessories.
Their initial launch struck a chord with men and women across the globe
when they launched a successful Kickstarter campaign selling no-show
socks.
Since then, Taft has experienced exponential growth through social media marketing, growth hacking, and more.
In this customer spotlight, we caught up with Kory of Taft to take a
look into this family run business to see how they got to where they are
today, and how they earned over $40,000 in one day after being featured
on Reddit.
Learn how to earn your first $1,000 with Reddit ads.
My wife and I both graduated from
University in April of 2013 and almost immediately after, took off for a
five week trip to Europe. I had a couple job offers but none that I
felt really excited about. I studied linguistics and minored in business management, but at the end of the day nothing felt really right. I thought about going into management
consulting, but my wife and I both thought the hours were just too much
- we were expecting our first child and I wanted to be around. During the last week of our trip,
standing at the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris, I had the idea to start
making men’s no-show socks. It was totally out of the blue, but I had seen so many people in Europe going sockless so it was just on my mind throughout the trip. I knew it couldn’t be comfortable to
always be barefoot, and I knew it couldn’t be good for their shoes. I
also knew that there weren’t any great no-show options for men out there
- they were all too flimsy or slipped down off your heel after a few
steps. As soon as we got home I set to work
on finding sock production in Asia, and almost immediately started
prototyping. We had never done anything like this before but I was
passionate about the idea and I just felt in my gut like we could really
rock it.
I’ll never forget sending Paint (yes, Microsoft Paint) renderings of
sock designs out to my family and friends, asking for their input. These
designs were absolutely horrible, and I’m sure my parents were
concerned about my “after-college” plans. It took months of prototyping (and
learning how to use Illustrator) to get it right but after a while we
finally had a product I was really stoked about. We did tons of
wear-testing and started to prep a Kickstarter campaign. We launched the Kickstarter campaign in March of last year, and fulfilled all the orders late in the Summer. We started Taft as a husband and wife and still operate the business out of our home, now with two little kids in tow.
How did you create, manufacture or source your product? What were some lessons you learned during this process?
When we started out with no-show socks, we found a product that we thought was a good starting point and then scoured Alibaba until we found that manufacturer.
It took some time to get the communication rolling, but we requested
samples from them right away. They started out by sending us what they
had done in the past, and we tried to pinpoint which socks were the
closest to what we’d envisioned. We passed gave them changes we wanted them to make, and then moved on to the next step of giving them our designs. I spent a lot of time designing
everything in their requested format, and then even more time picking
each of the colors. Something that was always a big hiccup was getting
the colors just right. It took some time before our factory told us how
they picked the colors they used and suggested we got a Pantone book. In the meantime, it felt like every
time we got samples, at least one of the pairs was a little off. After
months of working together, our factory told us that in order to really
move forward, all of our designs needed to consist of the same five
colors. We obviously weren’t excited about
that, and made the decision to start hunting down another factory. The
trickiest thing about this process was that we had never produced anything before! We didn’t know if this was just how it worked. There was so much miscommunication and the process just felt so slow. We’d design something, wait a couple months to get it, only to realize it still wasn’t right. We had no standard to compare this factory to, so it wasn’t until we found a really great factory that we realized how dysfunctional our relationship with the first factory had been. What was previously taking months and
many, many rounds of samples was now done in one or two rounds of
samples. Making the decision to leave the first factory was key - our
business wouldn’t be what it is if we hadn’t done that. Figuring out
production and getting the product just right was what took the longest,
by far. We had the idea for Taft in May of 2013 and didn’t launch officially until March of the next year. It took a lot
of patience to wait for the product to be just right. We ended up
working with three factories total, the third being the one we currently
produce with. It took some time to make sure that not only was the
product solid, but our relationship with the manufacturer was as well. When it comes to our shoes, we
actually found our factory through their Instagram account. We had
similar designs sampled in both China (working with our sock contacts to
find a shoe factory) and in Spain so we could compare quality and
pricing. We got samples back and they were honestly pretty similar. We weren’t thrilled with either of them initially. A few weeks after getting samples we
found out that the Chinese factory we had sampled with was a bit shady.
The factory owner had run off with $40k from another business he was
supposed to be producing for, and was nowhere to be found. If there was ever any question where we should produce, we got a lot of clarity really quick. We obviously decided to go the
Spanish route, but I still didn’t feel like the shoes were where they
needed to be. The factory told me that, really, the best route was to
fly out there and design the shoes in person. My wife was due with our second baby
any day but we felt it was best. We waited till our little girl arrived
and booked my ticket to Spain from the hospital. I left for about a week when she was
two weeks old, and spent that time really getting to know the factory
and designing the shoes. I designed every tiny detail and hand picked
every sole and every type of leather. It was beyond valuable to be there
in person - the process was just so much quicker. What would usually
take months and thousands of emails took just a couple days. If you have the luxury of time,
sending product back and forth and back and forth will eventually get
the job done. But we know now from our experience with shoes that it’s
much, much easier to go in person. There were no surprises and no
wondering if it would turn out right. I was able to explain what I
wanted done and see it happen first hand. I couldn’t be more pleased
with the quality of the shoes now. They’re exactly how I envisioned
them.
How did you promote your business initially and where did
your first sales come from? Any major media mentions or PR wins since
then?
Our very first sales came from Kickstarter about a year and a half ago! We were featured on Gear Hungry, Cool Hunting, and Super Compressor during the campaign and that really helped boost our pledges. We raised about $47k through Kickstarter and as soon as we fulfilled those orders, we immediately got to work building an Instagram following. Right from the start, we felt of the importance of producing great photos and posting beautiful content.
We started to build a pretty sizeable following as a result of our
photography and have used that as our primary strategy to push sales
ever since. Note: Be sure to take a look at how to build a massive following on Instagram. Because of our presence on social
media we’ve really organically become friends with people who also have a
lot of social media influence. We’re forever grateful to our blogger
friends who continually post about our stuff and tag us in their
photos. Our mentality has always been that if you create beautiful
content and great products, people will want to share it.
Our sales have really picked up in spurts. We had our first spurt
with the Kickstarter and another big sales pick up when our Instagram
following starting growing exponentially. Our biggest pickup in sales definitely came from our Reddit hug. We had a kind customer post about a
sale we were having on our no-show socks. We’d been planning for months
to launch shoes and had the socks at a steep discount to make room for
some incoming shipments. We intentionally hadn’t posted about
the sale in hopes that people who wanted the socks would find them
organically and it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. We had over 2,500 orders in the space of 48 hours and have been doing everything we can to really keep that momentum going. Beyond that, launching shoes has been a huge pick up in sales.
How do you handle fulfilment and organize the back-end of your
business? Can you share some key lessons and tips on doing this
successfully?
Right from the beginning we decided to work through a fulfillment center. We had over 1,000 orders from the
Kickstarter campaign, and knew that in order to get them out in a timely
fashion – that was the best way to go for us.
You were recently featured on Reddit and saw significant traction from that. How did that happen?
The whole Reddit experience was
pretty nuts. A couple weeks ago we listed our socks at a pretty steep
discount - we were preparing to launch our new line of shoes and needed
to free up some space at our warehouse. We chose not to post about the sale
on our Instagram and had hopes that we’d sell through the socks from
organic traffic to our site. One of our customers took note of the sale,
and shared it on the Frugal Male Fashion Advice subreddit and things really took off from there. A lot of other users were excited
about the sale and I did my best to respond to every question and
comment. People were really responsive to that interaction, and we ended
up on several other subreddits because of it. Before we knew it we were completely sold out of socks. We were planning on launching shoes
later in the week, but decided to take advantage of all that traffic and
launch right then and there. It was really valuable to get feedback on
the shoes and we actually ended up launching a pair we weren’t planning
on starting out with because of all the feedback we got.
After being featured on Reddit, did you notice any other men's lifestyle blogs feature your product?
In our work with Taft we’ve really
built a lot of great relationships with bloggers. Many of them have
become friends and we interact regularly. But after our Reddit feature I
definitely noticed a lot of our referring URLs were other blogs we
hadn’t previously worked with, which was really exciting. One of the biggest benefits of our
Reddit feature is just getting our name out there more and being
featured on these other blogs is a great way for that to happen.
How are you managing pre-orders with your online store? What is the process like from pre-order to fulfillment?
The Reddit feature really forced our
hand a bit earlier than we were expecting, so pre-orders is the only way
to do it. We let pre-orders roll in for a couple days to see what kind
of demand there would be. After selling a couple hundred pairs of shoes in the first few days, I knew what quantities to produce the shoes at. The shoes are currently in production
and will be delivered around the end of December. We will ship our
international orders from our warehouse in Spain and ship all US orders
from our warehouse here in Utah. We will continue to take pre-orders on
our site until the product gets here, and then get back to shipping
same-day. I am offering a special pre-order
price on the shoes to help incentivize people to make the purchase now
rather than wait until shoes are in stock. Pre-orders is a really
amazing way to save money on inventory, warehousing, and production
costs. My goal is to be completely sold out of everything by the time the shoes are done being produced.
You mentioned you and your wife are running this business together. What has life been like since your recent explosive success?
Ever since our hit on Reddit it has
been completely non-stop. I thought we were busy before but this is just
a whole new level. I’ve been the “can’t-eat-can’t-sleep” kind of busy. About three days into all the madness
my wife and I realized we hadn’t had a real conversation in days. It
felt like I had just been out of town or something. On the third or
fourth day we finally found some time to go out and as soon as I got
outside my eyes started burning because it was so bright - I realized it
was the first time I’d even left the house in days. We’ve just been on that grind. My wife has been corralling the kids
so I can get everything done and helping me any chance she gets. It’s
tough but we just keep saying it’s the best kind of busy to be. We’re
answering questions, communicating with our warehouse, placing orders,
and working on re-stocking product all while continuing to create
content for our Instagram account.
I’ll never forget the weekend of our Reddit hit. It was just total madness.
It was just total madness. My wife
and I were driving up to meet some family for dinner when we started
seeing orders trickle in quicker and quicker. We got about 7 or so
orders on the drive up and had 55 by the time we got our food.
We noticed all the traffic was coming from Reddit and found the post.
We were so excited but had no idea what was to come. When we got home we
realized the orders weren’t slowing down and, if anything, they were
picking up. We went to bed that night feeling very grateful. I was frantically trying to keep up
with all the questions we were getting on Reddit while expressing my
gratitude over and over again for everyone who was buying socks. At around midnight the orders were
still coming in strong and my wife asked me if there was any way we’d
sell out. Minimum order quantities are really high when it comes to
socks so we had plenty. I assured my wife there was no way we could sell
out overnight. She insisted I still put a cap on the number of orders
we’d take so we could sleep without having to worry about it, which I
did. The next day was a Sunday, I woke up
to hundreds and hundreds of order notifications but things seemed to be
slowing down. I still felt confident there was no way we’d sell out,
knowing just how many boxes of socks we had.
In one of our posts on Reddit I alluded to the fact that we needed to
move all these socks to prep for our shoe launch. People started asking
about the shoes, I started showing pictures, and before I knew it I was
looking at my wife saying “I think I’m going to launch shoes right
now!”
She told me to go with my gut, and I did. I had taken all the
necessary product shots in the days before (we were planning to launch
later in the week).
I wrote quick descriptions and listed the shoes for pre-order. Shoe sales immediately started trickling in around the same time I marked the women’s socks as sold out.
Unexpected launch shoes? Why not? Crazier things have happened.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Don’t compare your beginning to
someone else’s middle. I do this all the time. I think “wow. they are so
amazing and so successful, why am I not there?” And then I remember
that they have been doing it for many years and have a whole team behind
them. Never compare yourself to brands/companies that are at a different stage. It is discouraging and not productive.
Work relentlessly to create a
great product. If the product is great, then people will buy it and
marketing becomes a lot easier.
Be willing to put in the work. I
think one of the key characteristics entrepreneurs need is grit. Owning a
business is gritty and messy and you just have to be willing to do that
work. But also.. keep perspective on what
matters most. A thriving business means nothing to me if I’m failing at
being a dad or husband. I’m those things first and foremost
and a business owner second. Sometimes the hardest part of owning a
business is calling it a night, letting yourself be done for the day,
knowing you can pick it all back up tomorrow. Running a business is a marathon, not
a sprint. So it’s important to take care of yourself and make sure
you’re fit to be in it for the long-haul. There’s nothing worse than burning out. Want to share your story? We'd love to hear it! Share your Shopify success story for a chance to be featured.
About the Author
Tucker Schreiber is an entrepreneur and content crafter at Shopify.
He writes to inspire and educate readers on all things commerce.
