Order Detail Pages for B2B Platforms

It might sound elementary, but one of the most important areas of the dashboard is the order detail page. Customers want to know if their order was successfully processed, and they're typically going to see that confirmation during checkout. That’s far from the end of it, though. 

Almost immediately after the order has been processed, most customers want to know what the estimated time is for fulfillment. How long will it take to pack? How long will it take to ship? It's important that they are able to get an update on the status of the order right away and display how far along the shipment is in the process. The customer knows that you haven’t packed and shipped the items only seconds after the order was placed, but they want to know that the order went through and is now in good hands. 

What are the most important parts of an order details page and how it fits into the rest of the eCommerce framework? Let’s find out. 

Expectation Management

A primary component of an order details page is expectation management. When a customer purchases, they’ve made a commitment to buy, and they want to know that the business they’ve ordered from is committed to completing the transaction. Throughout most of human history, commerce has meant giving something and then immediately receiving something in return. When it comes to a B2B ordering system online, customers want to know that the process of getting them what they paid for has begun. 

A details page helps psychologically manage the expectations of the purchaser as to when something is going to be fulfilled. A message might tell them that their order has been received and that tracking information will be uploaded within 24 hours. If it’s going to be several business days before there’s going to be an update, it’s better to let the customer know. Always let the buyer know upfront what to expect, because once they know you’re honest about shipping, they may increase their order frequency. 

In most cases, it's better to set lower expectations than to over-promise and under-deliver. In fact, it's almost better to just always under-promise, no matter what, and then over-deliver. Yes, your estimated delivery needs to be comparable to your competitions’, but, when possible, having a little bit of buffer in the lead times is critical for customer satisfaction. 

Usually, the order details are going to show a list view first, so the customer will see a list of all the orders and will be able to filter by a preferred status, most often by date. Custom columns or data fields specific to your Commerce business can also be set. Some of Clarity’s clients have very specific fields that are part of their order information. There may be location-specific order details that they want to collapse and expand. It might make sense to have different suborders show up within the order list so that a user can sort based on specific classes of orders, such as split-payment or a split-shipment. Customers need to be able to drill down to the exact information they need. 

Sometimes it helps to have a preview of the products such as a thumbnail image with a preview of the product. If there are multiple products, the eCommerce platform software can combine the products’ images into a small rasterized image of all the products. It's also possible to have a rollover so that whenever someone is looking at this list view or grid view of the products, they can roll over the title or the image and they can see more details. Basically, they would just see their list of the items that were purchased, but then at any point the user can see more details such as SKU, price they paid (in their own currency), discounts, and if/how the shipment was split. 

Shipping Status

We now return to shipping status, perhaps the most referenced part of any order detail page. This shipping status is often visually based so that a customer can see at a glance where the item is. Of course, this includes tracking information once the item has been delivered to a carrier. They’ll also be able to view the details of what happened after the order was delivered: delivery time, who signed for it, where it was left, etc. 

If there are any issues with an order, the order detail page also offers a way for the customer to report the problem and request a return or report an issue. Maybe there was damage done to the item in transit. Maybe they don't want to accept it because it was the wrong item. They can do a return merchandise authorization (RMA). The RMA is granular, down to the item level and a quantity level within the items. So if there's just one damaged item, the customer can indicate such. If there are multiple items that have issues in an order, they can separate them as a group. An RMA can be set up for any situation in order to allow as much self-service as possible without having to involve customer service. 

As robust as the order details page can be with the abilities it offers, there will still be times when self-service won’t be enough. Depending on the settings for your store, chat can be offered as a feature from the details page. This way the customer can have a discussion with the support team regarding their order if needed. This can help with improving customer satisfaction, because most customers are ordering online to have the self-service and convenience of online ordering. If they can interact with customer service in an online fashion, it prevents them from having to deal with calling customer service and sitting on hold waiting to talk to somebody. Chat allows customers to compose their thoughts and explain details better, and it also feels less confrontational for most. 

Some of Clarity’s clients have an eCommerce business model where they are creating custom products, or at the very least have extensive variants of the same product. This is often done with the help of a configurator, and the order details page will give a detailed report of every decision that was made along the way. During their B2B-ordering, customers might first choose a shirt, then the type of material, then the color blue, then XL, and finally a design that they might have uploaded themselves. The original image can also be displayed. 

Clarity has implemented eCommerce solutions where clients may have very specific medical requirements for a HIPAA eCommerce platform or patient portal where they need to input specific medical information such as protected health information (PHI). This type of detail is possible on the line-item level, the order level, the shipment level.  

It's also possible to show a visual of an intermodal transportation status so that the platform can show where the items are on a map and what the points were so far in transit. Then the website visually shows this so the user can see the entire process: from the Asian manufacturing location to the shipping dock, to the port, and then to the dock stateside. From there they might see that it’s on an LTL shipment on its way to a customer’s specific warehouse. Clarity includes the tracking APIs for logistics and intermodal freight carriers, so that they can get this data in real time. 

We also have clients who have items that are broken out into different boxes, so it's the same order and it's technically the same shipment, but they're actually in different boxes. It can be very helpful to visually represent this for users so they know what to expect. Again, it’s all about expectation management and being able to present to the user what is in the shipment and what to expect. That way they're not expecting certain inventory and then finding out that that's not actually what was sent in this portion of the shipping. 

Specific Workflows

Some Clarity clients have unique workflows, so it may be necessary that their B2B ordering system offers interaction with the end-user to complete the order even though they've already paid for it. Here’s another medical example: A customer may purchase a diagnostic test of some kind, but they still may need to visit a doctor to be able to get the test sent to them. Maybe they need to complete additional steps, and the order details can be heavily customized to match this scenario. It can even dynamically adapt based on what's in the line items for their order so we can break this out to a separate tab of the user dashboard. It can be in the order details itself, but it's important to note that we can set up workflows and visually show where they are at in the steps of the workflow. 

Another example would be escrow-based payments for very large payments. Some of our auction C2C eCommerce clients offer large purchases from vendors who may be in a region of the world that doesn’t offer seller protections that they’re accustomed to. There may be a need to have a sort of escrow payment, and the order details can help manage the process of completing a transaction once it's been initiated. The buyer can then confirm that they received the item before the C2C business releases the escrow money and pays the seller. Just like with shipping, all of this can be shown visually. 

Having a custom order details pages is a very powerful aspect of having complete control over the eCommerce platform. It’s also an excellent way to make customers feel confident and increase their order frequency. Most off-the-shelf systems, and especially SaaS-based offerings, simply can’t provide customization that remotely matches the needs mentioned above. 

Clarity offers custom eCommerce solutions that can provide the most flexible platforms around, able to meet the needs of any business. If you want the absolute best in order detail pages, it’s time to talk to us.