The ShalomCloud Shopping Cart: Event Registration and Sale of Items
The ShalomCloud shopping cart provides synagogues with a versatile tool for handling event registrations, product sales, and fee collection. The shopping cart enables simple event registration and the purchase of fixed-priced items, including classes, high holiday tickets, Lulav and Etrog sets—really anything with a price, including zero.
Core Shopping Cart Features
Item Configuration Shopping cart items consist of the name of the item, a description, and a price, which could be zero or could be user-determined. Beyond basic pricing, the system now offers enhanced functionality: administrators can collect additional information from buyers by adding a custom question to items, and when someone places that item into the cart, the program provides a place for their response, with the question-answer pair included in purchase queries.
Direct Linking Capability Administrators can point a link or button directly to a specific item in the shopping cart, or to a group of items. By using a button or link on your website or in an email blast and directing people to that direct link, only that one item, or group of items, will show in the shopping cart. This streamlines the purchasing process for single-item promotions or targeted campaigns.
Processing Fees
One of the most significant recent enhancements is the introduction of configurable processing fees. Administrators can make fees mandatory and set the rates for card and for ACH transactions, respectively. The shopping cart features a radio button for selecting payment methods and automatically calculates the total including fees.
The system provides granular control over fee settings:
- Administrators can specify the percentage for card transactions (e.g., 3%) and for ACH transactions (e.g., 1%), with most congregations setting ACH fees to 0% to encourage usage
- Fees can be mandatory or optional, with customizable verbiage for the fee prompt (e.g., ‘Please consider including…’)
- Administrators can set custom phrases for user responses (e.g., ‘Yes, I’d be happy to’ or ‘Sorry, no, cannot cooperate’)
- Fee amounts can be posted to a designated financial category
- Processing fee settings apply to both the shopping cart and contribution portals
Access Control and Permissions
ShalomCloud now offers an authorization specifically for the shopping cart, allowing administrators to grant access to create and update items in the shopping cart without granting access to the rest of the financial information. Previously, managing shopping cart items required full financial permissions, which also provided access to pledges, contributions, and all shopping cart activity. This granular permission structure allows for better delegation of administrative tasks.
Member Portal Integration
Members can link directly to the ShalomCloud shopping cart from the member portal. Administrators have control over which buttons appear on the member portal, providing flexibility in how members access the shopping cart.
Reporting and Tracking
Purchase queries include question-answer pairs from custom item questions, enabling comprehensive tracking of registrations and purchases. This data helps administrators understand not just what was purchased, but also collect important contextual information about each transaction.
Use Cases
The shopping cart’s flexibility makes it suitable for numerous synagogue needs:
- Event registration (dinners, community events, lectures)
- Religious school enrollment and fees
- High Holiday ticket sales
- Product sales (religious items, books, food items)
- Class registration
- Any fixed-price or variable-price transactions
The shopping cart seamlessly integrates with ShalomCloud’s financial tracking system, ensuring all transactions are properly recorded and can be included in member statements and financial reports.
This comprehensive shopping cart solution demonstrates ShalomCloud’s commitment to providing synagogues with professional-grade e-commerce capabilities tailored specifically to their unique operational needs.