Everything You Need To Know About Self-Made and Wholesale Orders

If you're an artist or a photographer, placing an order manually with your Fulfillment Vendor can be a crucial step in your business. There are various reasons why you might need to do this, such as stocking up for an upcoming art show, having samples on hand, or processing offline sales on your website. Whatever your reason, you can easily place a Self Made Order directly from your Site Manager. In this article, we'll explain the different types of orders, guide you through the process of placing a Self Made Order at both regular and wholesale costs, and show you how to delay a vendor purchase and send an invoice from your website. So, let's get started!

If you have any questions regarding your existing orders, please refer to the following correspondence to receive the best assistance. By directing your questions to the appropriate parties, you can ensure that your concerns are addressed as efficiently and effectively as possible:

Graphik Dimensions: asfprints@artstorefronts.com
Bay Photo: bayphoto@artstorefronts.com
Gooten: gooten@artstorefronts.com
Print Partner: https://www.printpartner.ca/contact

What is a Regular Website Order

A Regular Website Order is an order that a customer makes through your website at the regular price, which includes markups added. This is the most common type of order for most artists, where customers view a product on the artist's website and purchase it without any intervention from the artist. However, if the artist is making a purchase on behalf of a customer or for themselves, they should create a self-made order through their Site Manager instead of making a purchase through the website like a regular customer.

What is a Self-Made Order

A Self-Made order is a convenient feature available on your Art Storefronts website that enables you to place orders through the Site Manager on your own behalf or on behalf of your customers. This feature is particularly useful when you need to purchase samples, stock up on prints for an upcoming art show or facilitate a sale you made offline.

When you create a Self-Made order for a product that is automatically fulfilled, any vendor fulfillment costs associated with the order will be charged to the credit card linked to your Art Storefronts account. It's important to note that these costs will need to be paid to the vendor before they start processing the order. However, if you've enabled a delay on vendor fulfillment order charges, the costs will be charged at a later date.

What is a Wholesale Cost Order

If your website uses automated fulfillment, you can utilize a Self-Made Orders feature to buy prints directly from the company that is currently handling your print fulfillment, at wholesale prices (in other words, your markups will be removed from the pricing).

This feature is commonly used by artists and photographers who sell at local art fairs or in retail art galleries and need to get prints made for in-person sales. Buying prints directly from your fulfillment partner allows for a simple process, with the prints shipped directly to you and all records kept within your Site Manager. We recommend reading our blog post "Benefits of Using the Wholesale Orders Feature"to learn more about the advantages of this process.

The term "wholesale" is used to clarify that for these orders, your markups will not be added to the cost of the order. If markups are applied, it is considered "regular website" pricing.

Instructions on how to place both regular and wholesale Self-Made orders, how to delay vendor charges, and how to send an invoice from the site can be found below. These guides are organized into separate tabs for easy navigation.

Please note: If you are looking to place an order at a wholesale cost, please switch over to the "Wholesale Cost Order" tab.

Getting started

Log in to your Site Manager and, in the upper right-hand corner, find the menu labeled Jump To. In this menu, select the option labeled Orders.
At the top of the page, you will have four tabs. Click on the one labeled Self-Made Orders.
Select the black button labeled + New Order on the left-hand side of the page.

Billing & Shipping information

You will be directed to a new page with two different options: New Customer and Choose an Existing Customer.

Create a New Customer

Here you will either create a new contact for the order or select an existing customer from your contacts. If you have not created your contact yet, you will click on New Customer.
Once you click on this, new fields will appear, where you can enter the personal details of your customer into these fields, which should be fairly self-explanatory.
Near the bottom of the list are three other fields that need extra explanation. The first is the option to make this customer Tax Exempt. You should only enable this if you have a specific reason to.
The second is Can Buy Wholesale. Again, you should only enable this if you really need to. Any customer who has this enabled will be pay wholesale prices for their orders, but you should not enable this as you will not make any profit on any orders for customers who are Wholesale-enabled.
The last option is Send Welcome Email To Customer. If you check this, the customer will be sent a notification email informing them about the creation of their account.
After you have reviewed the information you have entered, if it is correct you can click on the black button labeled Create to create the account for your customer.
Once the contact has been created, you will be given the option to Start Order or Go Back. If you would like to continue purchasing a product, select Start Order. If you would like to edit the contact you just created or add another contact, click the button labeled Go Back.

Use an Existing Customer

If you already have a contact for this customer, click on Choose an Existing Customer.
A drop-down will appear with a search bar labeled Search Contacts. Type in the name of the contact you would like to use for the order inside the text box. When finished, click GO to see your results. Once you see the contact, click the black button labeled Select.

If you are placing a Wholesale Order, make sure that the contact you are selecting has wholesale buying ability. This can be checked by clicking on the contact Name and selecting the "User" tab.

Shipping and Billing Addresses

Once you have created or selected your customer, you can see on the right under the Order Summary that there are no shipping or billing addresses set up. So let’s move on first to filling in their Shipping Address.
If your contact doesn't have the customer's shipping address, then you will need to click on Create New Address. You will then see a drop-down with fields to add your shipping address. After you have added all the information, click on the black button at the bottom of the fields labeled Create New Address to save your information.
This will add the address to the account. You can click on Ok here to move on to the next stage where you will select it.
Click on Select Existing and select the address you have created.
Once you have done so, you can also check the box Apply To Billing Address to automatically fill in your Billing Address for the order. This is useful if you are placing an order for yourself and it is shipped to your address.
Next, you will need to add your Billing Address (if you didn't do so in the previous step.)
If your contact doesn't have the customer’s billing address, then you will need to click on Create New Address. You will then see a drop-down with fields to add your billing address. After you have added all the information, click on the black button at the bottom of the fields labeled Create New Address to save your information.
If your contact already has a shipping address entered for their account, you can click on Select Existing. A drop-down box will appear and you can select the correct address from the listings.

Optional: Backdating an Order

You may have noticed a new section appearing at the top of the screen labeled Custom Order Date. This is so you can set the date and other details of an order you may have received previously but have only been able to enter into the system.

For example, a customer at a show paid for a print on Sunday, but you didn’t get back home where you were able to enter the purchase into the site until Monday.

All you need to do is click in the box labeled click here, select the date in the window which has opened (and the time if you wish), and then click on Done.

Selecting Products

Now click on + Add Items. This is where you will select the products for the order.
You can type the name or category for the product you are looking for, and click on GO to begin a search. Once you have found the product you are looking for, click on the Select button beside it.
Once you have selected a product, you will be given the option to add it to your cart. If you have selected a print product, you will need to select your preferences before you can add the print to your cart. First, you will select your Medium type. When finished, press Continue.
Then select the size of your print and press Continue.
Now, select the Styles of your print and press Continue.
To add your item to the cart, review your Summary, and click on the Add to Cart button. (You have the option of setting a Price Override here, but unless you have a need to set this at a specific value we recommend you use the price as shown.)

Keep in mind that the Price Override will not affect the wholesale price of the order. You'd still be charged the wholesale price, regardless of the value you add in this field

Select Shipping Option

After adding all the products you need to the order, proceed by clicking on the Shipping Method tab and select a shipping method available for the product you've chosen.

It's important to note that the Override Shipping Total option should only be used for self-fulfilled orders and when you have a specific need to do so. Keep in mind that your Fulfillment Vendor will always charge you the correct shipping price regardless of the value entered in this field.

Review & Pay

Now click on Review & Pay.
You can empty your cart by clicking on the red Empty Cart button if you want to remove all the products from your cart and start over.
You will also now see a breakdown of the order you are about to place.
It's now time to select your Payment Method. By default, it requires the credit card details from your customer.
Alternatively you can select Already Paid Externally if they have paid you directly already (such as cash payment at a show), or Going To Pay Externally if you have yet to receive payment. Also, if you'd like to send an invoice for the order to the Customer, select Create an Invoice. More details on how to send an invoice can be found in the "Send an Invoice" tab of this article.

Note: Your credit card on file with your Art Storefronts site will be charged immediately upon this order being placed, so you should be prepared to cover this cost.
Next is Order Status. If the order has fulfillment items you will be unable to change this.
Next is Shipping Status. If you are self-fulfilling the order you will be able to set this to reflect the shipping status of your order, but for an order with vendor-fulfilled products, this setting will initially be set by your vendor.
Next is the option to add a message to the customer to the order. This will appear on the order receipt they are emailed.
Here you can disable the emailed Order Receipt. Our recommendation is that this should remain enabled.
Once you are happy with your order, simply click on Place Order to complete your order.

How to make a Wholesale Order

This type of order is priced according to the wholesale cost of fulfilling the prints which make up the order. This means there is no markup being applied, so it should not be used when creating an order for a client, or you will not be making any profit on this order.

Starting the Order
Selecting a Contact
Adding Products to the Order
Review and Pay