Collecting donations online is a very effective way to raise funds for nonprofits, charities, relief funds, and special causes.
Adding a charitable donations plugin to your e-commerce site can help you contribute to a noble cause but asking your customers to donate helpful aid is not always an easy task. Only if there were ways other than displaying a donate button a text on the homepage.
As a store owner, Donation for WooCommerce is the best way to add a charitable donation option to your checkout page and encourage customers to donate.
In this article, we are going to discuss:
- How you can add a Donation Product for WooCommerce extension on your site.
- How you can add donations to your checkout page.
- How you can ask your customers to round up their transactions to the nearest amount by donating the difference on the checkout page.
- How to add a donation widget on the sidebar of your website with custom styling options.
Why offer charitable donation options to your customers?
According to a Good Scout Group study, customers have grown accustomed to being asked to make donations at the checkout. What’s amazing is that 71% of respondents have donated to charity at the register.
Charitable checkout techniques are becoming more sophisticated as retailers are learning to leverage technology to inform potential donors why a cause is so important and what will be done with the donation money. Remember, donors, are generally somewhat reluctant to be the first to make a donation.
Companies need to understand consumer preferences, sentiment, and motivations around donating at the register. This is where Donation Product for WooCommerce comes in.
Different ways to offer donation options to your customers
There are 3 ways to offer donation options on your WooCommerce website:
1- Donation Product
Display a list of donation options for your customers to choose from before they check them out like any other product in the store.
2-Display a free-choice donation option at the cart/check out page
Give your customers the choice to donate whatever amount they please. This free-choice option helps customers make small donations.
3- Round-up Donations
Ask users to round up their transactions to the nearest amount by donating the difference to charity on the checkout page.
How to deliver a seamless donation experience to your customers?
You need a donation plugin that is reliable, works on both mobile and desktop computers, is compatible with your preferred payment gateway, send receipts to donors, and is customizable enough to make it look good on your website.
While the above is a must-have list for any and all donation plugins, how can you increase user engagement and thus donations? Here is an idea:
Display the donation option directly under the products your customers have added to cart so when they view their shopping cart, they can select which charity they would like to donate to. They can then choose to donate through a fixed amount, a custom amount, or round-up their bill.
Donation For WooCommerce adds a new product type called Donation. Create a product complete with text, images, video, or any content you want to use, and select Donation for the product type. It adds “donation” as a regular WooCommerce product so visitors can add a donation to their shopping cart and pay for it via the regular checkout process.
A few key features include:
- Create and add a donation as a regular WooCommerce product.
- Collect donations without charging a transaction fee.
- Create a quick order form listing all the donation options before taking customers to the checkout page.
- Give your donation product a predefined value.
- Allow users to enter and pay a custom donation value.
- Manage multiple donation campaigns simultaneously.
- Add a donation sidebar widget to the website.
- Display Donation Form using a shortcode.
Round-Up and donate the difference using the “Round-Up” feature on your checkout page.
Eager to get started?
- Follow the steps in the WooCommerce Getting Started Guide.
- Install and set up Donation Products for WooCommerce.
- Create your Donation product type.
- Track your donation amounts and campaigns from the back-end.
For additional details and information view our full documentation.
