Frequently Asked Questions
What is the idea?
We want to maximize the potential for distribution of Christian materials by offering products for sale through local church, ministry and charity/non-profit web sites. Churches, ministries and charities will gain a 12% commission on each sale made through their shop, but won't have to carry stock.
How does it work?
Suppliers of Christian books and CDs will offer their range of goods in a catalogue available to users of ChurchInsight. Site Administrators will be able to disable individual catalogues; but will also be able to promote individual products that are particularly relevant. Visitors to your website will be able to browse or search for products, buy with their debit or credit card, and take delivery according to the supplier's delivery terms. At the end of each month the church or charity will receive a 12% commission based on the retail price of products sold in the shop, less VAT.
Range of products
Initially we are launching this eCommerce facility with a catalogue of CDs, DVDs and books available from Integrity-Provident Europe, one of the UK's leading publishers and providers of Christian music and other products. We expect the range of products available for sale to grow as additional suppliers make further catalogues available. However, administrators at each ChurchInsight site will be able to choose which catalogues of products to enable for sale on their web site.
What will it look like on my site?
The Shop facility is an integral part of ChurchInsight. It can already be used to offer items for sale and fulfillment in-house. This new initiative will integrate additional catalogues of products for sale within the one shop and your customers will be able to select items from more than one catalogue before reaching the checkout. However, at the checkout the customer will clearly see the charges, including different delivery charges, for the products that they have ordered. There will be one payment or charge to their card (listed on their card statement as "ChurchInsight") but separate fulfillment from each supplier with whom an order has been placed.
How do I promote the shop facility?
Most ChurchInsight sites will want to promote the shop facility.
- One of the best ways of doing this will be to place a Shop "Hot Picks" module on the Home page of your site. This is achieved through the layout editor and you are in control over where the hot picks will appear on the page and other details.
- In addition, some churches will want to produce sermon notes or other articles that hyperlink to an appropriate item or category within the shop.
- Your web site users will be able to refer to shop items in discussion forum posts.
How do I administer this?
We provide a full-functioned shop administration system within the Web Office that will let you browse the catalogues, exclude selected catalogues, subcategories or items, and create hot picks to promote selected items on the site. By default we’ll keep the existing administrator list for existing shops and open the shop admin to all site administrators for new shops. For more, see the eCommerce Implementation Guide.
What will it cost?
There is no charge to the ChurchInsight customer for this additional service. Indeed, customers will find that their monthly subscription cost is reduced by the amount of commission earned on sales through their web site.
What is the catch?
We really don't think there is one! Just as with ChurchInsight itself, we make no minimum term of contract and you can opt-out of displaying one or more, or all, shop catalogues at any point.
How is commission tracked?
There are already some eCommerce reports available which show the sales activity through your website. However, ChurchInsight will track these sales and produce a monthly statement showing how much you are due to pay for ChurchInsight, based on the number of Current Members in the Root Group of your site, and the amount of commission earned in sales for that period, with a net charge.
How much money can we raise?
You can earn 12% of the retail price, net of VAT, on each product that you sell without limit. One church already sells an average of £5.33 per household per month from a table at the back of the Sunday meetings. 12% of that yields £0.64p per household per month in commission!
How will we receive our payment?
The commission payment will be set against the monthly cost due for use of the ChurchInsight service, reducing the amount that you have to pay each month. It is possible that some customers will earn more in sales commission than they are due to pay for use of ChurchInsight and in those circumstances we will raise a cheque in payment when more than £20.00 has been earned.
Why does the payment mechanism have to change?
Clearly the amount of money owed to ChurchInsight each month will vary, depending on the amount of sales conducted through that site in the period. As a result we need to put in place a mechanism for charging that variable amount as quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. We have selected card payment processing as the most secure and appropriate mechanism at present. We may supplement that with direct debit facilities (only for customers in the UK) at some stage in the future, but have no current plans to do so.
One church without a card for us to bill against has asked to "trial" the eCommerce facility. They will continue to pay ChurchInsight monthly by standing order but receive commission on product sales through their website quarterly by cheque payment.
Security and Privacy
We have put extensive effort into making the eCommerce facility robust and secure, ensuring that it complies with good practice and the requirements made by financial institutions. For example, the checkout process is carried out using secure SSL encryption procedures.
Naturally, we need to store details of the customer's name and delivery address together with the items ordered and these details will be passed to the appropriate supplier for fulfillment of the order. However, at no stage do we store the customer's card details on our systems so it is impossible for the card details to be recovered by some malicious operator. More than that, we promise not to use the purchaser's name and contact information for any further marketing - we will only contact them in relation to the orders being processed.
Who can I contact to find out more?
Or please just contact us and ask to speak to Mike Schorah.
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