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Selling Messages and Comments

While processing a sale there are a range of different sale specific messages and comments that can be displayed and captured.

Selling Message

The term selling message is used to indicate a message that is displayed at sale time, ie when the item is added to a sale. Selling messages are displayed in a modal/blocking way, so that the operator must acknowledge the message. You can define selling messages for

  1. Products. A selling message on a product is displayed when that item is sold. The message is free form text, so can contain whatever you wish.
    Examples
    • Advise customer this item cannot be returned once opened
    • Gets free gift during May, see staff newsletter #16 for details
    • Open carton and confirm with customer that no items are broken
  2. Customers. Selling messages can be entered per customer as well. When the customer is selected onto the sale, any selling messages will be displayed.
    Examples
    • Customer is friend of store owner
    • Do not allow customer to have eftpos cash out
    • ask customer to confirm email, the one on file bounces


When a selling message is displayed, the POS records this was shown and how long it was onscreen. You can see this log by viewing the full technical detail for a sale, and reading the "salelog" section


Where Selling Messages are Defined

From version P2366 of PosGreen, selling messages are now taken from several sources:

The local database product entry of "sellingmessage" shown at the top. This product field is explicitly under store control even if the products are managed externally. This means a store can put any message on any product, and that message will appear first.

Next, the product field "sellingmsgdist" is loaded and displayed if present. This field can only be controlled by external parties defining the product.

(advanced, rare) Next, if the product field "firmware" has a value, and the setting "SaleShowSellingMessageFirmware" contains a string of words, then the string and the firmware version are displayed.

While there are three sources of selling message, the POS reads all three and displays only one pop up message to the user. Each section is displayed with blank lines in between. A final displayed message consisting of all three parts might look like:

Spare covers are out the back in cupboard 2

Check age of manufacture, if older than 1993 you may not provide service

Current firmware is 3.8.1073

Turning Messages on or off

You can control if a selling lane displays messages or not via a settings.

For Products, the setting SaleShowSellingMessage (default yes) controls if messages are displayed or not.

For Customers, the logic is slightly longer

  1. If the setting SaleDisplayCustomerMessages (default yes, display) is off, then no messages are shown at all
  2. If the setting Table.customers.Dmef.sellingmessage.Prompt (default no, do not display) is enabled, any customer specific message is added to the list of messages to display
  3. If the setting Table.customers.Dmef.comments.Prompt (default no, do not display) is enabled, any customer specific comments are added to the list
  4. All messages in the list, if any, are displayed.

Customer selling messages and comments are often shown on the selling screen, hence why the defaults are not to display

Comments

Comments tend to be more captured input at sales time. Comments will often be customer visible or internal only. These are defined as seperate fields so that internal comments are clearly marked and not accidentally shown to customers

Not all the possible comments make sense for all retail environments, and may not be enabled by default

  • Sale Comments. These are overview comments against the whole sale. These are shown in PastSales
  • Saleline comments - internal. These comments are captured against a single saleline and relate only to that item.
  • Saleline comments - customer visible These comments are also captured against a single saleline, but are potentally customer visible. These are often used for additional sale terms and conditions
  • Delivery comments. For sales that are explicitly delivered, this field holds comments intended for the delivery courier. This field is typically set via eCommerce interfaces

Related Areas

There exists a single field "identification" that is stored against the sale itself. This field is designed to capture forms of post sale identification. Most commonly this is used to record something like the customer vehicle registration number which they are observed leaving in. While not commonly used in most retail environments, this field can be set after a sale is completed via past sales.

There is an optional extension "contact log", that lets you maintain a list of comments against a customer. These comments are all available for all time and kept as a permanent log. This is different from the single customer "comment" field which only holds a single current comment.