19 — Product Requests

Let customers ask for a product you don't carry yet — and turn that request into a sale once you have it.

#About Add-ons

Product Requests is the first of a growing set of Add-ons — optional features that go beyond the theme's core store-building tools. You'll find all of them together under Raftaar Commerce → Add-ons in your WordPress admin: a simple card grid showing what's available, what's active, and what's coming next. Each add-on that has its own settings gives you a Settings button right on its card, and one that has its own dedicated admin page gives you an Open button. You don't need to do anything on this page for an add-on you're not using — everything ships built in and ready to turn on.

#What Product Requests does

A customer browsing your store doesn't always find what they're looking for. Instead of just leaving, Product Requests gives them a simple way to tell you what they want — and gives you a full workflow to review, respond to, and fulfil that request, right from your WordPress admin.

#Where customers see it

A "Can't find what you're looking for?" banner appears automatically in three places:

• The top of your shop page
• The bottom of your shop page
• Your Contact page (if you have one at the standard /contact address)

Clicking the banner's button opens a form in a popup window, right on top of the page — the customer never has to leave what they were browsing.

#Placing the banner anywhere else

If you'd like the same banner somewhere else — a homepage section, a category page, a blog post — paste this shortcode wherever shortcodes are supported:

[rc_product_request_cta]

You can also customise its heading, description, and button text:

[rc_product_request_cta heading="Looking for something specific?" text="Let us know and we'll try to find it." button="Send a request"]

If you'd rather show the full request form directly on a page instead of a button that opens a popup, use:

[rc_product_request]

See Shortcodes for general shortcode usage.

#What the customer fills in

The request form asks for:

• Name
• Email
• Phone (optional)
• A message describing what they're looking for
• Up to 5 photos (optional) — customers can drag and drop images onto the form, or click to browse and choose files

#Managing requests as a store owner

Go to Raftaar Commerce → Product Requests to see every submission, newest first. A red badge on the menu item shows how many are still new.

Each request moves through a simple lifecycle:

1. New — just submitted, not yet looked at.
2. Reviewing — you're looking into it (this step is optional — you can skip straight to Accepted or Declined if you already know the answer).
3. Accepted or Declined — your decision on whether you'll try to source the product.
4. Fulfilled — you've added the product and linked it to the request (only available after Accepted).

At every step, the customer automatically gets an email letting them know where things stand — you don't need to contact them separately. If you decline a request, you can include a short reason that's included in that email.

#Fulfilling a request

Once a request is Accepted, click Mark Fulfilled and choose one of two ways to complete it:

• Link an existing product — search your catalog and pick the product you already added that matches the request. Useful when you've since added the item as a normal, publicly listed product.
• Create a private one-time listing — enter a name, price, and optional description, and the system creates the product for you automatically. "Private" here means the product is fully purchasable — it has a real product page, works in the cart and at checkout — but it won't show up in your shop page, category pages, or on-site search. The only way to reach it is the direct link, which is exactly what gets emailed to the customer who requested it. This is handy for a one-off item you don't want cluttering your regular catalog.

Either way, once marked Fulfilled, the customer automatically receives an email with a working link to buy the product. Requests fulfilled with a private listing show a small "Private listing" badge in the request's details, as a reminder that it's not publicly listed.

#Notification settings

Go to Raftaar Commerce → Add-ons and open Product Requests' Settings to manage:

• Notify customers by email — on by default. Turn this off if you'd rather manage the whole process manually without automated emails going out at each stage.
• Admin alert email address — where you're notified whenever a new request comes in. Defaults to your site's admin email, but you can point it anywhere.

#Troubleshooting

• The banner button doesn't do anything when clicked. Try a hard refresh (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + R). If it continues, check that your license is active — see License, Activation & Updates.
• A fulfilled product doesn't show up on my shop page. If it was fulfilled as a "private one-time listing," that's expected — it's intentionally excluded from your shop, category pages, and search. Share the link from the request's details (or the one already emailed to the customer) if you need it.