Selling services in your online store

In addition to physical and digital products, you can sell services in your online store. Whether you hold fitness sessions, give masterclasses, fix bikes or consult people, you can use Ecwid to offer your services online, establish a customer base, and grow your business.

To add a service to your store, you create a product and disable shipping options for it. Adding a detailed description, images and product videos showcasing your services will help you clearly communicate what you offer. You can also add a calendar to a product page and allow people to book appointments.

Adding a service

You add services just like you add products to your catalog. The only difference from a physical product is that you disable shipping for the service. 

To add a service and disable shipping:

If your service is time-sensitive and you want customers to choose time for sessions, you can accept bookings in your store.

Adding services with booking to your online store

Accepting bookings is ideal for small businesses or individuals who take appointments such as DJ’s, babysitters, interior decorators, rental services and others. The booking process can be automated to save time and to avoid emails and phone calls. All you have to do is integrate your synced online calendar to your product page.

To accept booking by integrating your calendar to a product page:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Catalog → Products.
2. Select a product or create a new one.
3. Switch to the Options tab.
4. In the Customer input fields, click + Add Input Field.
5. In the Input field name, enter “Date” and in the Input field type choose Date picker.
6. Tick the Required field checkbox.
7. Click Save.
8. Click + Add Input Field to add the second input option named “Time” that consists of a simple text field. This is where your client can let you know the time at which they wish to meet with you. 
9. Tick the Required field checkbox:
   

   

10. Click Save.
11. Get the code of your calendar. For example, get the code of Google calendar and copy it.
12. On the Products page in your Ecwid admin, open your “service” product for editing. 
13. In the Description field, click on the <> symbol on the far right to switch to HTML mode and paste your calendar code to let your clients know when you are available.
14. Above the code, add a small explanation for your clients on how to make a reservation. For example, let them know they have to check your calendar before they book with you to make sure you are free.
15. Click Save.

Now when a client selects a certain date and time, they will see it in their order confirmation email:

Customizing order statuses for selling services

By default, your Ecwid online store has fulfillment statuses for physical products. With these statuses, you keep your customers updated about their order. Each time you change the status, the customer receives an email that their order is processed, ready for pickup, and so on.

Since you sell services, the default statuses may not fit your needs. In that case, you can create custom order statuses. For example, you could use statuses like Repair in Progress or Your Class is Booked:

If you have added a calendar to your product page and ask customers to book a convenient time, the selected date and time will appear in the order confirmation email. However, when you change the order status, the automated email sent to customers will not mention the booked time.

To remind your clients about the upcoming event, you can create a custom order status that will keep clients in the loop about the upcoming event. For example, The session begins in 1 hour or Your class is tomorrow:

Adding a link to an online class in automated customer emails

When you sell online classes such as language lessons, yoga sessions, or ukulele classes, you need to share a link to Zoom, Google Meet, or another communication platform with your clients. You can include this link in the automated emails sent to customers, allowing them to join the class directly from the email:

The following instructions provide general steps for adding a link. You can change the link’s placement in the email as well as the font, font size and alignment of the text. For more details on how to edit email templates, refer to the Editing email notification templates article.

To add a link to a customer notification template:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Settings → Notifications.
2. Click Edit next to the template you want to change. In this example, it’s the “Order status changed” email.
3. Navigating by markups, find the place where you want to add your link. In this example, we add the link after the list of purchased items and total, so it’s line 393. 
4. Add the code. We use the following code, but it’s just an example that you can customize to change the font, font size, color, or text alignment:

   
   <tr>
   <td align="left" valign="top" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;
   font-size: 24px;line-height: 24px;color: #333333;padding-top:16px;">
              <strong>Link to your online class</strong>: YOURLINK.COM 
   </td>
   </tr>
       

5. Click Save.

Best practices: Writing service descriptions

Service descriptions are critical to defining the scope of work you are delivering to your customer. They should know what they receive, how and when they receive it.

Detailed service description should include:

• Deliverables: Tell your customers what you will be providing.
• Timeframe: when are the deliverables received by your customer.
• Special conditions and limitations: any special terms and conditions of your service.

Collapsible blocks on the product editing page will help you to better structure your text.

Here's an example of a service description from PALEOISTA store, where you can get a nutrition consultation or buy a private cooking class:

Private Farmer's Market Field Trip + Cooking Lesson

[Deliverables] Shopping at the local Farmer's Market sounds great, but once you're there, are you overwhelmed and confused? Concerned you'll buy too much, not enough or that things will go to waste?

You're not alone; most people feel this way and together, we will navigate through all the produce, protein and artisanal olive oils in a simple method using basic techniques suitable for all skill levels.

[Timeframe] This service begins with shopping, then heading to the kitchen and spend a couple of hours preparing food in a simple, yet delicious manner.

With most dishes consisting of less than three ingredients and three steps, you'll fall in love with how easy it is to create beautiful meals in a short period of time that are both good for you, and taste amazing as well!

* Does not include the cost of food.

* Prices subject to change based on travel time.

* No refunds.