Understanding Orders and Order Types

Orders are formal requests that capture the buyer’s intent, the seller’s obligation, and the commercial terms governing the transaction. In Liferay Commerce, orders are the central piece that ties together all activities in the purchasing process, whether placed natively or imported from third-party systems. Liferay also provides intuitive features for managing orders and addressing unique scenarios (e.g., subscriptions, specialized orders).

This lesson explores the process of managing orders in Liferay and handling different use cases.

Creating and Managing Orders

Liferay provides two primary methods to create orders, each covering different requirements:

• Cart Checkout: Orders are created automatically when a user adds an item to the cart. This is the standard method for most purchasing scenarios.
• Headless APIs: Orders are imported or synchronized programmatically. This method is best used for system integrations and bulk data handling.

Once created, orders appear in the dedicated Orders application. Here, you can filter records by status, account, channel, or date range. You can also inspect order details, review payment and shipment history, and trigger management actions that update its status.

These functionalities provide you the visibility and control needed to manage your orders effectively.

Leveraging Order Types

Not all orders follow the same path. For example, a wholesale purchase often requires different pricing rules and approval workflows than a standard retail order. Liferay’s order types enable you to distinguish between these orders logically. Crucially, order types do not apply business logic themselves; rather, they act as references. You can then configure how your systems handle these different types of orders.

Order types support several common scenarios:

• Regular Orders: Follow the default checkout and fulfillment process.
• Rush Orders: Flag the order for expedited processing.
• Overnight Orders: Require next-day shipping options.

By combining order types with workflows and order rules, you can apply custom business logic and ensure orders satisfy your requirements. You’ll learn more later in this module.

When creating an order type, you can configure its basic details (e.g., name), display order, active status, and channel eligibility. Liferay uses these details to determine which active order types are available:

• If only one order type is eligible for a purchase, it’s automatically assigned.
• If multiple order types are eligible, customers can choose one when adding the first item to the cart.

Once chosen, the type of an order cannot be modified by regular users or administrators. If a customer wants to use a different order type, they must place a new order.

Handling Subscriptions

Subscriptions are periodical, recurring orders, such as monthly deliveries or renewable online services. Liferay supports two types of subscriptions: Payment (for recurring payments) and Delivery (for recurring shipments). You can use both types simultaneously to implement selling strategies.

Subscriptions are enabled and created at the product level. To use them, at least one recurring payment method must be active, such as PayPal Subscriptions.

Similar to regular orders, subscriptions appear in the Orders application upon checkout. Once accepted, Liferay automatically generates the corresponding subscription entry in the dedicated Subscriptions application.

There, you can check the subscription’s reference order, active subscription types, and included items. You can also track the subscription’s complete shipment and payment history. Furthermore, you can perform various actions to manage the subscription, such as suspending it, configuring renewal checks, or allowing buyers to cancel it.

Best Practices for Orders

When creating and managing orders, consider these best practices:

• Create a Default Order Type: Define a default Order Type to guarantee that regular, standard orders meet your basic processing and fulfillment requirements.
• Establish Naming Conventions: Establish clear naming conventions for all order types to improve administrative clarity, team communication, and overall system governance.
• Delegate Responsibility: Create clear internal procedures to delegate specific order scenarios (e.g., subscriptions, rush orders) to specialized teams. This decentralization can enhance approval processes, increase supply chain resilience, and accelerate overall order processing.

By adhering to these principles, you can ensure orders align with your requirements.

Clarity’s Order Strategy

Clarity Vision Solutions has identified a gap in their current process. Distributors frequently face urgent, time-sensitive demands, such as needing medical lens replacements or spare parts for immediate repairs. Currently, these high-priority requests get stuck in the general B2B queue, leading to delays and lost sales.

To address this, Clarity wants to create a new “Express” order type to prioritize these orders. Additionally, they want to establish clear internal procedures to assign the execution of these orders to their specialized procurement team, ensuring rapid approval and effective coordination.

Conclusion

Liferay’s administrative tools empower you to efficiently manage orders and address unique scenarios. By combining these tools, you can maximize customer satisfaction and deliver successful buying journeys.

Next, you’ll create Clarity’s Express order type.