[Tutorial] Placing a Manual Order

By Sarah - October th, 2020- in Tutorials

The CustomCat Team is beyond thrilled to announce the release of our brand new Manual Order function!
This powerful new feature makes it easier than ever to order directly from CustomCat. Simply click “Place an Order” in your CustomCat dashboard, build your product, & checkout!
Using this feature, you can order samples before connecting your store, place replacement orders, submit custom orders, test new designs before pushing them to your store, send products directly to influencers, or simply order a product for your own personal use!
Check out our step-by-step tutorial below:

Step 1: Sign In

Visit app.customcat.com/signin or click the “Sign In” Icon in the top right corner of the CustomCat.com homepage.

Step 2: Click “Place an Order”

Click the “Place an Order” button in the top right corner of your screen.

Or if you’ve already connected a store, you can select “Create Manual Order” from your ‘My Stores’ Dashboard.

Step 3 (for sellers who’ve already connected a store): Assign to a Store

**Skip this step if you have not yet connected a store.
If you’ve already connected your store, simply select it from the dropdown menu.

Select your preferred store from the dropdown menu.

If you’d prefer to place a manual order without selecting a store, please chose “My Manual Orders” from the dropdown menu.

Step 4: Design Your Product

Select a product to which you’d like to apply your designs, upload your artwork, & customize your positioning.

Search our catalog & select the product to which you’d like to apply your design. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ve selected an 11oz Black Mug.

To apply your design, select “Design” or simply click the “Add Design” text on the product photo.

From this step, you can upload a new design or select one from your Design Library. We’ve selected a transparent PNG image from our design library to apply to this mug.

We’d like this design to be printed on the front & back of our mug, so we’ve selected “Default” positioning. If we’d created a design to the specifications of our 11oz Black Mug Art Template, we would select “Full” positioning to achieve a full wrapped look.

Step 5: Review Your Order

After positioning your design & clicking “Confirm,” you can review all the items in your cart. On this page, you can change the quantity of each item or click the product to alter the positioning, size, or color variants.

If you’d like to order a product in more than one size or color, simply “Duplicate” the product in your cart (as shown) & adjust the size or color as desired.

Step 6: Check Out

Lastly, enter your shipping address, shipping method, & payment method (if prompted) — then click Place Order!

If you’ve selected to have your manual order associated with a connected store in your account, payment for the items in your manual order will be processed via the preferred payment method you entered in your store settings.
If you’ve chosen “My Manual Orders” or have not yet connected a store, you will be prompted to enter your payment information during Checkout.

Voila! Your order will be sent directly to our production system & you can now track the progress of your new manually placed order in your Store Dashboard.

Tracking Your Manual Orders

In order to view your order’s status, click “My Stores” from the left navigation menu, then select the store you assigned your order to.
If you did not select a store, click “My Manual Orders.” If you did assign the order to a particular store, select that store.

Next, you’ll be brought to your Order Dashboard. To view your processed & processing orders, click “View All.”
Within your order list, you can specify to view orders from a specific date range & filter for Manual orders from the selected dates using the drop down menu at the top of your screen.
Once you’ve found your order in your order list, you will see the order ID, Order Date, Customer Name, Cost, Shipping Method, Status, & Tracking information (if the order has shipped). You will notice a small “M” to the left of the order, indicating it was placed manually.
If your order has not yet entered production, you are able to edit shipping method. After the order has entered production, it cannot be canceled & any requests for modification of shipping method or address should be submitted as customer support requests (using the green envelope next to the order). We recommend pausing the order until you hear back from our Customer Support staff if the requested change will impact the shipping address or method.

Once your order has shipped, you will see your tracking link displayed the the left of the order. Please note that we do not currently send confirmation emails or shipment notification emails for Manual Orders.
If you need to submit a customer support ticket regarding a manual order, please select the small green envelope to the right of the order (pictured below).

If you’re placing orders in bulk, but you prefer a manual process rather than automated via direct integration with CustomCat, you may find Ordering by CSV to be more your speed. Check out our CSV Ordering Tutorial to learn more.

If you have any questions about using the Manual Order feature, please leave a comment below or email us directly at [email protected]

Happy selling!