Customers' experience
Delegates follow a one-off account creation process where they have to input their details (billing and delivery address) creating a user name and password. Once registered, they can proceed and purchase their product.
If they are registering for a confererence or event, the delegate category is selected first ie. standard registration, student registration, speaker registration etc. If required, they are presented with a questionnaire where delegates are asked for relevant information i.e. dietary and accessibility requirements, job title, student ID. Next they are offered conference options which are usually accommodation dates, conference dinner, workshops, leisure activities and these can be chargeable or free of charge. The final stage of the process is confirmation of charges followed by the payment page requiring credit/debit card details.
When the transaction is complete, the delegate will receive an email confirmation and the department receives a copy of this. The delegate also receives a brief "thank you for your booking" email which details contact information of the event organisers and the department can provide input for this if required.
Payment options
The system is designed to accept payments by credit/debit card only and cannot facilitate bookings paid by any other method. Payments are advertised in £STG on the eSales system but overseas delegates can opt for dynamic currency conversion and pay in local currency at the rate on the day if they wish.
Behind the scences
The back office system of the online sales programme produces spreadsheets with delegate information and these can be requested at any time (weekly, fortnightly, ad hoc) to tally/confirm the emails which have already been received by the organisers.
You can view the online store at the following url and see how other departments are using this facility:
- Test Store
- Visit our short demonstration video for an overview of the online store.
Getting started
When an application form is received, the data is put into our Test store and a url is sent to the organisers to view and make amendments as necessary. When the event/item is ready to go live, the data is re-input (manually unfortunately) to the Live store and the final Live url is sent through to the organisers to advertise on their website or email to delegates as necessary.
This facility is offered free of charge to departments at present and all costs associated are absorbed centrally by the Finance Division. Applications for the online store are subject to approval by the VAT team.
Departments should allow at least 5 working days from submission of their application form to receiving the Live url.