Navigating the Checkout Process

If you have your Courses available to purchase online as Products, users will go through the Checkout process to actually purchase and gain access to the Course or enroll into a class for an Instructor Led course. The checkout process occurs when a potential Student is ready to purchase your Product through the Course Catalog. The will also need to go through these same steps if the Product is free, although they won't be charged and won't need to put in payment information. If seats in a Course are needing to be purchased in bulk by a representative for an organization or group, they can do so as well. 

In this article, we'll be going through how a user can browse the Course Catalog, go through Checkout, and how they can then access the Course. We'll show what it looks like to a user checking out as an individual, as well as what the checkout process looks like if a user is purchasing seats in bulk for a group. Then we will review the emails that go out after a purchase, and the ways you can customize the checkout pages. 

Checking Out as a Single User

The first step to purchasing a Product is browsing the Course Catalog, which will contain a list of your available Products. 

1. Potential Students can browse through your Course Catalog listings to find the Course they want. 
   
   If you offer Instructor Led courses, those types of products will need to have their own catalog page--please see here for more details. Also note that Instructor Led courses may not be available to legacy users. Please contact support if you have questions about the availability of this feature and adding it to your platform!
2. When they find the Course they want, they select Add to Cart. 
   For Instructor Led course-based Products, the student will be required to select the location and date/time of the class they would like to enroll in before they can add it to their cart: 
3. The Shopping Cart will display. Students will have the choice to continue shopping or proceed to checkout. 
4. Students will be directed to either login or create a new account before heading to the checkout page.
5. Once they have logged in or created an account, Students will have a chance to review the contents of their shopping cart:
6. In the case of a free Product, Students can proceed to place their order. 
7. If coupons are enabled, the coupon code can be applied before the payment is made.
8. For a paid Product, billing information must be entered. First, a billing address. If a Student has their address saved in their account settings, these fields will auto-populate. After a first purchase has been made, this address will be saved in the Student's account settings. 
9. Credit card information is entered next. Stripe, Authorize.net, and Braintree by PayPal are the payment platforms available for integration. It is possible to use more than one, or all together if you wish. The Student would be allowed to choose their own checkout method at time of purchase. 
10. When the purchase is complete, the Student will be returned to their homepage inside the account. The Courses purchased in the Product will now appear in their My Courses section.

To view details for Instructor Led courses, they will toggle to Instructor Led, and will be able to view their upcoming classes and any associated study materials. 

Checking Out as a Group/Bulk Purchasing

Groups allow you to sell course seats in bulk to organizations or institutions and delegate the student management to a representative of that organization (for example a manager in a company overseeing the education of his employees). While you (the Admin) can create a Group on your end, Groups can also be created by the representative purchasing seats via the Course Catalog themselves, requiring little  involvement from your end! 

Essentially, the representative will select to purchase more than one quantity of a Course, and will the be prompted to create an account--they'll enter the company name, and the user purchasing the seats will become the Group Admin. Once the seats have been purchased, they'll be able to enroll students into those course. 

For a more details walkthrough on how Group Admins purchase several seats, please see this article, and in the meantime, here is the workflow for purchasing multiple seats:

1. After selecting a Course from the Course Catalog Page, a user will see that they'll have the option to purchase for a Group once they get to the Checkout Page:
2. The user will select Proceed to Checkout, and be prompted to Create an Account. If they select the checkbox that they are purchasing for a Group, they'll be required to enter the organization name, as well as their own information. The user account created at sign up will have Group Admin permissions and will be named as the Group Admin for the group of Course seats being purchased. 
3. After they have created the account, the user (the new Group Admin) will proceed through checkout, and as a Group Admin, will be able to change the quantity of Products on the Checkout page, corresponding to the number of Students that will be taking that Course.
4. In the case of a free Product, Students can proceed to place their order.
5. If coupons are enabled, the coupon code can be applied before the payment is made.
6. For a paid Product, billing information must be entered. First, a billing address. After a first purchase has been made, this address will be saved in the User's account settings and will autopopulate next time. 

   

7. Credit card information is entered next. Stripe, Authorize.net, and Braintree are the payment platforms available for integration. It is possible to use more than one, or all together if you wish. The User is allowed to choose their own checkout method at time of purchase.

   

8. Once the purchase is completed, the Group Admin will then be able to manage the group and enroll Students in the purchased seats for the Courses, which is laid out here: Enrolling Students and Managing your Group (for Group Admins)

eCommerce Emails

When a purchase has been completed, automated emails will be sent to both the new Student and the Admin(s) of the account. 

Admins have the option of setting up and receiving emails for the following order notifications:

• New Order
• Failed Order
• Pending Payment
• Refunded Order
• Failed Subscription

Students will receive a Primary Recipient version of the New Order email when they complete a purchase. The account Admin or any other CC'd addresses will receive an Other Users to be Notified version of the New Order email when a new purchase is completed.

The eCommerce email settings can be found in the Admin Dashboard at by selecting Settings, then Emails. Then choose eCommerce. 

Customizing Checkout Pages

It's possible to customize both the Cart page and the Checkout page. 

1. Both types of pages can be found in the Admin Dashboard by going to Pages & Menus, then Pages 
2. Premade Checkout and Cart pages are available for use, but you have the option to create your own pages by selecting the Create Page button.
3. If you chose to create a new page, you need to assign the new page in the Site Page Identification. This can be done in the dashboard at Settings > General. 
4. When editing the Content area of your pages, you must include the premade block necessary for the page. There is a Checkout Component block and a Shopping Cart Component block. They are found by selecting + > Blocks. 

For much more detail on how to build site pages, please see this guide: Using the Page Builder.

Next Step

Up next, you'll want to review our guide on managing orders and invoices:

• Managing eCommerce Orders/Invoices