Client Overview
Traiteur ‘t Hooghuys is a food business owner who wanted to improve the order management process for their customers and kitchen staff. They required custom features in their WooCommerce store to streamline operations, enhance user experience, and better manage orders through their store.
Project Objective
The client contacted us to create a more efficient and user-friendly order management system for their WooCommerce store. The scope of work included creating custom order IDs, building a dedicated orders page for the kitchen team, implementing a deposit payment feature, and enabling the printing of product variations and dish-specific orders. These requirements were designed to optimize the client’s operational workflow and improve customer satisfaction.
Requirements and Challenges
The client required custom features to address inefficiencies in order management and improve usability for both staff and customers.
⇨ Custom Order IDs
The client needed a system to identify and track orders quickly. A unique format combining the delivery date and a sequence number had to be developed to replace standard, incrementing order numbers. The challenge was ensuring the format was intuitive and automated for daily use.
⇨ Dedicated Orders Page for Kitchen Staff
The kitchen team required a custom page to filter and view orders by delivery date. Separating orders by dish type and printing lists for specific dishes posed challenges in designing a user-friendly and efficient interface.
⇨ Deposit Payment System
The client wanted customers to pay a deposit instead of the full order amount upfront. This required implementing logic to calculate and process partial payments while ensuring seamless integration with the existing payment gateway.
⇨ Order Variations Listing and Printing
Creating a page categorizing orders by dish type, displaying quantities, and including a print option requires significant customization. Ensuring this functionality aligned with the WooCommerce framework added to the complexity.
⇨ Printable Product Variations
The need for printable variations demanded precise formatting and compatibility with different order details, making the implementation more intricate.
Solution Delivered
⇨ Custom Order ID System
To make order identification easier, a custom order ID format was implemented. Each ID includes the delivery date and a sequence number for orders within that day. For example, an order for January 24th would have an ID like "24 Jan 01," where "01" represents the day's first order. Subsequent orders increment the sequence number, providing a clear and intuitive system for tracking and managing orders.
⇨ New Orders Page for Kitchen Staff
A dedicated orders page was developed specifically for the kitchen staff. This page allows filtering by delivery date, displaying a list of orders for the selected day. To further streamline the preparation process, the page includes dish-specific order separation. Orders are grouped by dish type, enabling kitchen staff to see how many orders exist for each dish (e.g., four orders of a fish dish) and print separate lists for individual dishes.
⇨ Deposit Payment Feature
A deposit payment option was implemented to provide flexibility for customers. Customers can pay a fixed advance of 50 at the time of order placement (for orders above €50), with the balance payable upon delivery. This feature caters to customer convenience and improves client cash flow.
⇨ Custom Page for Listing Orders by Variations
A dedicated page was added to separate dishes into sections based on their type (e.g., Starter, Main Dish, Potatoes). Each section displays specific dishes ordered (e.g., Salad, Beef, Chips) along with associated order numbers and quantities. The page also includes an option to print the entire list, ensuring easy access and usability for the kitchen staff.
⇨ Printable Product Variations
Functionality was added to allow the client to print detailed lists of product variations, ensuring all order details are easily accessible for review or preparation.
Outcomes
Conclusion
Our deep knowledge of WooCommerce and customization allowed us to deliver a tailored solution that met the client’s needs. Rather than relying on generic features, Virtina took the time to understand the client’s unique challenges and created custom solutions that worked with their business operations.
Our ability to improve efficiency played a critical role in this project. We identified areas where automation and optimization could make a real difference, reducing manual tasks and speeding up processes. Regarding user experience, we excelled at creating a smooth, user-friendly interface. We customized the design to be visually appealing while ensuring that navigation was easy, even for non-technical users. Our attention to detail meant that customers and administrators had a positive experience, which is key for any platform.
What set us apart was our deep WooCommerce expertise. We didn’t just settle for standard features. Instead, we customized everything from plugins to themes to ensure the platform was functional, scalable, and secure for future growth. Virtina’s client-first approach and technical skills allowed us to deliver a solution perfectly tailored to the client’s needs. This project is an excellent example of how a customized WooCommerce platform can be transformed to fit specialized business requirements and improve overall performance.
