Order form template

What an order form has to capture

An order form fails in one of two ways: it does not collect enough to fulfil the order, or it collects so much that people give up and send a text message instead. The minimum is what you need to make the thing and get it to them — item, quantity, when, where, and how they are paying.

Everything else is optional, and every optional question costs you a percentage of completed orders.

Delivery or collection changes which questions matter

Asking for a full delivery address from somebody collecting in person is a wasted question, and wasted questions are where forms get abandoned. Ask the delivery-or-collection question early and show the address field only to the people it applies to.

The online version of this template does that. On the printed version, mark the address block clearly as delivery only.

Ask for the date, and be honest about lead time

Most order disputes are about timing rather than the order itself. Asking when they need it — and stating your lead time next to the question — converts an argument after the fact into an expectation set before it.

Two fields cause almost all the follow-up messages

The first is the address. A single line box gets a single line, and then somebody has to write back to ask for the postcode, or the flat number, or whether the trade entrance is round the back. Separate lines for street, town, postcode and a box for delivery notes cost the customer four seconds and save an exchange of messages on every order that goes anywhere unusual.

The second is the item itself. "One large" is not an order if you make two things in large. Where a product has a size, a colour, a finish or a flavour, each of those is its own question with its own answer — not a free text box the customer is expected to compose correctly.

Both of these are the same mistake in different places: a field that is easy to build and hard to answer. The test is whether you could fulfil the order from the answer alone, without knowing anything else about the person who sent it.

Say what happens next, on the form

The moment somebody presses submit is the moment they start wondering whether it worked. A line on the form saying when they will hear back, and from where, removes the message asking whether the order came through — which for most small businesses is the single most common message they receive.

Payment terms belong on the form

If you invoice, say the terms on the form. If you take a deposit, say the amount. An order form is the last moment before somebody is committed, and it is the cheapest possible place to make the terms visible.