The Lean E-Commerce Solution: Accepting Online Orders with Fluent Forms

As the gateway to interactivity, forms represent an important part of your website. As such, they are no longer ‘just’ ways to contact you. Instead, you can achieve a whole host of tasks using the right WordPress plugin. For example, accepting online orders with Fluent Forms is an excellent way to harness the power of the plugin.

This post will give you a complete guide on accepting online orders using Fluent Forms. It’s a use case we think you’ll love, just as much as the rest of this excellent plugin. Our first stop though is to tell you a little about what the plugin can achieve in general.

A Quick Overview of Fluent Forms

We review Fluent Forms elsewhere on the WP Mayor blog. Because of this, we don’t need to go too in-depth here about what Fluent Forms is. Still, it’s worth noting some of its key functionality, because it shows just what the plugin is capable of:

• You have a full suite of tools to help you build almost any form you can imagine. You’re able to start with a pre-built template, customize it further, and build the fields using a drag-and-drop builder.
• Speaking of which, there are over 50 form fields to choose from. This isn’t only different text types either. There are fields to help users upload files, choose options using radio buttons, and more.
• Fluent Forms also includes advanced functionality to help you capture data. For instance, you can make calculations, employ conditional logic to your fields, autocomplete addresses, and much more.

We encourage you to check out our full Fluent Forms review to see exactly what the plugin is capable of. However, the focus of this article is transactions. Next, we’ll discuss why a WordPress form builder is a near-perfect way to take payments.

Why Fluent Forms Is An Ideal E-Commerce Solution (Despite Not Being a Dedicated One)

On the surface, it does seem odd for us to recommend a form plugin to carry out e-commerce transactions. However, there are a few great reasons for this. First of all, consider complexity.

For example, while installing a plugin such as Woo is straightforward to set up, it’s not ideal for many scenarios. Sure, if you have a full set of product lines and variations to showcase, Woo is the way. However, imagine several other scenarios that won’t need this level of administration:

• You may sell one-time access to your site, for which complicated product options won’t be necessary.
• If you run personal events, selling a ticket through a simple solution could be all you need.
• You could charge a consultancy fee for meetings such as video calls. In these cases, a quick way to pay at the contact form stage is an excellent way to pay for it.

Of course, many more types of situation will call for a payment solution such as this. In short, using the functionality a form builder offers can pull ‘double duty’. That is, if the plugin you choose can accommodate your needs, keep your data safe, and let you customize the experience to suit your vision.

Accepting Online Orders with Fluent Forms: a 2-Step How-To Guide

In this part of the post, we’ll look at how to use Fluent Forms when accepting online orders. Note that we’re not going to cover the installation process for Fluent Forms. For this, you’ll need to check out our Fluent Forms review. However, once you activate the plugin, open it up and follow along with our guide.

1. Setting Up Payment Gateways

Accepting online orders with Fluent Forms doesn’t take long, and starts from the Fluent Forms dashboard. Every premium plan available for the plugin gives you access to payment functionality, which you can find at the Fluent Forms Pro > Global Settings > Payment screen within WordPress. The option you want to click is: Enable Payment Module:

Once you do this, enter a business name, address, and logo. Within the Currency tab, choose your default currency, and customize how those figures will display:

On the Payment > Payment Methods page, you can choose and set up the gateways you’ll use when taking orders. There are a number of payment gateways, and you’ll see those options along the toolbar:

In a nutshell, each one will need you to toggle the gateway on and input some essential information. The excellent Fluent Forms documentation will guide you for each specific service. Regardless, once you set up your gateways and save your changes, you can begin to display and customize your form fields on the front end.

2. Displaying and Customizing the Payment Fields

To set up payments, head to the Fluent Forms Pro > Forms screen. Here, click the Add New Form button, then choose how you’ll start your form:

Clicking through will bring you to the Fluent Forms editor. From here, you can work with the Payment Fields section and add those form fields to your canvas:

You’ll start with the Payment Item element, and drag that onto your form. The right-hand sidebar will show options specific to the field, so you should at least add a name within the Element Label, a Payment Amount, and a name for the Amount Label:

If a customer can order several of the same items, the Item Quantity form field will be useful here too:

The Payment Method form field is also important, as this gives your potential customers options to pay. Through using the checkboxes, you can add specific gateway options to your form:

From here, you can check your payment form on the front end, and adjust as necessary. However, this isn’t the end of the experience. You’re also able to add a few other ways to capture more sales, such as coupon codes. You can also enhance the cart experience in many ways. The Fluent Forms documentation covers many of them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Our guide tells you all about accepting online orders using Fluent Forms, but won’t answer every question you have. While you can do this in the comment section at the end of the post, we also have a few pressing questions we can give you the answer to now!

What Payment Gateways Does Fluent Forms Include and Support?

Fluent Forms includes many of the most popular ways to carry out transactions online. There’s support for PayPal, Stripe, Square, Mollie, Paystack, and RazorPay. You’re also able to add as many of these to your forms as possible.

Is Accepting Online Orders Possible on All Fluent Forms Plans?

Yes! The full feature set of Fluent Forms is available to you regardless of your choice of premium tier.

Why Should You Use Fluent Forms to Accept Online Orders Rather Than an E-Commerce Solution?

Sometimes, a full-featured plugin such as Woo will not be appropriate for your needs. For instance, you may want to take one-off payments for consultancy, which won’t need a whole e-commerce platform. In these cases, Fluent Forms’ payment functionality will be ideal.

Will My Customer Information Be Safe When Using Fluent Forms to Take Payments?

The beauty of accepting online orders using Fluent Forms is that the setup is inherently secure. This is due to the security your site will already have in place (such as HTTPS and SSL). What’s more, the data itself isn’t processed directly by Fluent Forms. Instead, the payment gateway you integrate takes on the responsibility. As such, your customer data will always be as safe as the rest of the information on your site.

That’s a Wrap!

In many situations, you may not need a comprehensive e-commerce plugin to achieve your goals. This is especially true if you need a simple and lean way to take payments online. Accepting online orders with Fluent Forms may not seem like a good decision, but it can work wonders.

This is down to the rich feature set of the plugin, the in-depth customization options, and the ease with which you can implement an online payment system. For straightforward transactions without complicated back-end administration, accepting online orders with Fluent Forms is something you can turn to – and stick with.

Is accepting online orders with Fluent Forms something you’re excited about? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!