With online buyers expected to shoot up to 1.92 billion in 2019, businesses still behind on the e-commerce front are simply letting massive revenue pass them by.
Modern equipment rental businesses feature online stores that offer convenient rentals anywhere and at any time. While setting up a Webstore can often seem like a lot of development effort, configure the EZRentOut Webstore in minutes!
If, instead, you’re using a third-party online store for your rentals and managing orders with EZRentOut at the backend, here’s a convenient way to bring the two together.
With our rental plugin, link your EZRentOut items and Bundles with your online store and add our Webstore’s functionality to it. This works for both WordPress sites and third-party online stores like Squarespace, so you can ensure brand consistency no matter the store platform.
Webstore Plugin Widgets
Add to Cart
Let customers add items to your EZRentOut Cart as they browse through your online store. You can allow customers to either rent out the items or buy them.
Add to Cart by Name
Group items with the same name but different locations so customers can automatically add the variant that is available, irrespective of location. This will also make your Webstore easier to navigate!
Display Item Details
Showcase complete item details against items in your rental catalog so customers can rent Orders with the right specifications and are aware of exactly what they’re getting.
Availability Calendar
Add an Availability Calendar next to each rental item so customers can check equipment availability by date well before time. This will also be beneficial in making alternate arrangements in the event of unavailability. Get conflict-free bookings every time!
Item Details (Grouped by name)
Group together items that have the same name in your rental catalog in order to create a more compact view. You can also add an Availability Calendar for items that are grouped by name.
Integrating with your WordPress online store
If your online store is hosted on WordPress, here’s how to equip it with our sleek features. Keep in mind that the integration between our Webstore and WordPress is only successful if both platforms are SSL secure.
- From your WordPress, head to Plugins → Add New.
- Search for the ‘EZRentOut Webstore Plugin’, install it, and activate it. If, instead, you have the rental plugin downloaded to your system, unzip it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
- In the EZRentOut Webstore Plugin Settings, specify your online store URL and save it.
- Head to your EZRentOut Account. From Settings → Store Settings, enable the Webstore and the Webstore Plugin.
5. Now, it’s time to prep your items! Go to the Item Details Page for an Item on your online store.
6. Click on the More tab and select ‘Anchor Tags For Widget’ from the dropdown menu.
7. Copy the widget tags from the new dialog.
- Paste these to the respective item’s post in your WordPress site.
This is what the post will look like once you add the ‘Add to Cart’ Anchor Tag.
- Repeat for all items that you’d like to form linkages with.
This is what the post will look like once you add the ‘Add to Cart’ Anchor Tag.NOTE: Please note that if you enable certain settings within EZRentOut that conflict with the plug-in, you will receive an error while loading your WordPress site. This is because that particular functionality is not available via plug-ins.
Here are the settings you need to configure in order to avoid the error. Go to Settings → Store Settings → Restricted Access and disable this setting.
If you have enabled Multi Store Settings, go to Company Settings → Multi-Store Settings and select the “Do not apply restrictions for customers” option. 
These features are not available on third-party applications because of certain authorization limitations.
Integrating with other third-party online stores:
Learn more – Integrating with Magento
For third-party stores such as Squarespace, do the following:
- Enable the Webstore and the Webstore Plugin from Settings → Store Settings in EZRentOut. Enabling the plugin links your website with the Carts Page in EZRentOut.
2. Now, you need to set up the environment in your online store for EZRentOut widgets. Copy the shortcodes provided in the settings and paste these at the end of your website’s body (inside <body></body>, right before </body>).
3. Next, items in your rental catalog need to be equipped with the right anchor tags to link them with their Item Details Pages in EZRentOut. To do this, head to an Item Details Page.
4. Copy the widget tags from ‘Anchor Tag for Widget’.
5. Paste them to the item’s post on your online store.
6. Repeat for all items in your online store.
Note: You can also mass import shortcodes for Items. To do so, go to Settings → Store Settings → Webstore Plugin → Retrieve Anchor tags in bulk using API.
Styling the widgets
The widgets that you display over your WordPress can be styled however you like by editing the Anchor Tags. Let’s explore this.
The Anchor Tag for your item will look something like this:
<a id=”ezr-cart-widget-item-17″ onclick=”ezrAddItemToCartDialog(17, this)” href=”#_”>Add To Cart</a>
This appears as a hyperlink under your items.
1. You can change the <a> tag to a <button> tag to convert it to a button.
<button id=”ezr-cart-widget-item-17″ onclick=”ezrAddItemToCartDialog(17, this)” href=”#_”>Add To Cart</button>
This is what it’ll look like:
2. Furthermore, you can also style the <a> tag to display it as a button like so.
<a id=”ezr-cart-widget-item-17″ style=”border: 1px solid red; padding: 10px; background: red; border-radius: 4px; color: white; text-decoration: none;” onclick=”ezrAddItemToCartDialog(17, this)” href=”#_”>Add To Cart</a>
Change the various attributes however you like to make your online store seem more engaging. This is what our new <a> tag looks like.
Setting up the Webstore Plugin Theme
Our Webstore Widget visuals are completely customizable! Under Settings → Store Settings → Theme, define element colors or enter custom CSS to style the widget as you like.
Share your queries
We love hearing from you! Shoot us queries or enhancement requests at support@ezo.io.
