Xola's Package feature allows you to bundle multiple Xola experiences together into one single product offering. They’re a great way to group and showcase more than one experience offering while driving incremental revenue by encouraging larger purchases.
- Packages are a combination of two or more Xola Experiences.
- Package purchases are handled as one single purchase action & transaction for customers. For you, Package purchases will behave in a very similar manner to normal purchases.
What's covered in this article:
How to Make a Package Purchase
How to Modify Package Purchases
How to Create a Package
Since packages are a combination of multiple experiences into one product offering, this means that some parts of Packaged purchases are derived from the "base experience", and some are overridden at the package level.
When you create a new package, you'll enter new information for the parts of the Package that need to be combined when presenting your multiple experiences to customers as one Packaged offering.
To create a new package, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Products > Packages.
- Select the blue Create a Package button.
- Enter a Title for your package.
- Select your Demographic Restriction for the package
- If you select 'Demographics may vary across products in package' the guest will be able to determine the guest count for each experience in the package. This is the ideal option if you would like to allow guests to choose different guest counts for experiences in a package.
- If you select 'All products in the package must share common demographics' the guest count selected for the base experience will be applied to the additional experiences in the package. The guest will not be presented with the option to change the guest count for the remaining experiences in the package. This is the ideal option if you need guest counts to be the same for all experiences in a package.
- Select which Experiences you want to make up the package offering.
- Note: Only experiences that are priced “per person” can be included in a package.
- Enter an Excerpt: This is the text that will appear to your customers when they are checking out online.
- Enter a Description: This text is used when participating in Xola's optional distribution channels (Viator, Get Your Guide, etc), meaning it will not be displayed to your customers when making a normal purchase through a Xola checkout window.
- Set your recommended Duration between events.
- This value will be factored in when a customer goes to book a package from your website. For example, if you enter in 30 minutes as your Duration between Events, start times for events within a package purchase made via checkout will be required to have at least 30 minutes buffering them.
- Add in any desired Blackout Schedules. If you choose to create and save a blackout schedule, package purchases will not be available for that date range. The individual experiences that make up a package will not be affected.
- Set your Start Time Restriction. This setting will limit what times customers purchasing the package via checkout can select. There are two options available when configuring this:
- Start times for events in package purchases must be on the same day.
- Start times for events in package purchases must be within...: If this option is chosen, you'll need to input a value that effectively creates a window of time within which start times for a package purchase must fall. For example, if you enter in 4 hours, a customer could have one start time for Experience A at 12:00 PM and another for Experience B at 4:00 PM, but could not book Experience B at 5:00 PM.
- Describe your Cancellation Policy for this package’s purchases. This field is displayed in confirmation and reminder emails.
- Describe any Other Considerations that you want your customers to be made aware of once they purchase this package. This field is displayed in confirmation and reminder emails.
- Select Save
Package Pricing
Now it’s time to set a price for your Package. You can configure a custom price for your package’s Demographics and Add-ons.
Demographic Pricing: Package prices are set at the Demographic level. The Base Price that you see in this section is the sum of the demographic price for each individual listing that makes up the package. An easy way to describe this would be that the Base price represents what a customer would pay if they were to book each listing independently.
You have the option to set a demographic’s price by specifying a discrete dollar amount to be discounted, a percentage discount, or by simply choosing a final price. You can also add/remove a shared global demographic to/from the package offering.
Add-On Pricing: If any of the listings that make up the package have Add-ons configured, they will appear on this page.
Similar to demographics, You have the option to set an Add-on’s price by specifying a discrete dollar amount to be discounted, a percentage discount, or by simply choosing a final price. You can also add/remove an Add-on to/from the package offering.
Payment Method: In this section, specify whether you would like to require payment from customers booking via checkout, or not.
Deposits: If you’d like to allow customers to place a down deposit when booking this package via checkout, follow these steps:
- Check the box, Enable deposit payments.
- Specify how far in advance the event's start time must be in order to allow a deposit.
- Enter in the required deposit amount. You have the option to collect:
- A dollar amount per person
- A dollar amount per checkout
- A percentage of the checkout price
Note: Customers who book online will always have the option to pay their checkout amount in full, as opposed to just the deposit amount.
Package Photos
Each package that you make will need to have a photo uploaded. This photo will be displayed to customers in checkout when they are making a package booking. The primary photo for each individual listing is also displayed to customers, however individual listing photos are displayed a bit less prominently than your package’s primary photo (see packages checkout).
Package photos are configured the same way that Listing photos are - check out this article for instructions on how to upload and manage photos.
Package Questionnaire
When a package booking is made, only one instance of your questionnaire will be prompted post-checkout.
Questionnaires for packages are configured in the exact same way that Listing questionnaires are - check out this article for instructions on how to create and manage questionnaires.
Package Terms and Conditions
Terms and Conditions for packages are configured in the exact same way that Listing Terms and Conditions are - check out this article for instructions on how to create and manage Terms and Conditions.
Taxes and Fees for Packages
Currently, taxes and fees for Package bookings are assessed individually per Event, according to that event's Listing configuration. So, the total Taxes and Fees charged for Package bookings will add up to the same amount that you'd see if both events were booked separately from one another (after any applicable discounts).
How to Make a Package Booking
In the Back Office
- From the Dashboard or Purchases tab, click the green Book button and choose an experience to book.
- Select the Package the customer would like to book.
- Enter Booking Details.
- Quantity of guests
- Date & Time of each event in the Package
- Note:You can book events that overlap in duration in the back office if you would like (after receiving a pop-up warning asking if you’re sure). When booking a package online, overlapping events are not allowed to be booked.
- Don’t see the time that you need? Select add a new timeslot to create a new one! (note: if your inventory is not available, you won’t be able to create a new timeslot)
- Select Add-On Quantity
- Enter payment details.
- Apply Gift or Affiliate
- Currently, discount coupon codes & Vouchers cannot be used for Package bookings.
- Select payment method: (CC, Cash, Check, Other, Pay Later).
- If your customer is paying by check, we recommend noting the check number in the comment section.
- Pay Later: This allows the customer to reserve their spot without collecting any payment. You can later go into the customer purchase to collect on the balance.
- Do not charge card now: This will store your customer's card information but will not yet charge the customer. You can later go into the customer purchase to collect on the balance.
- Add a Booking Note (optional) - This will appear on the resulting booking page and on the event's roster in the Booking Notes section.
- Click Pay.
- Note: Package bookings are handled as one single transaction for customers
- After accepting payment, you will be prompted to complete the Package’s questionnaire (if applicable). This step can be bypassed by clicking "Skip", but must be completed if the booking is made online.
- After completing the questionnaire (or processing payment if the listing booked does not have a questionnaire), you will be taken into the Package’s purchase record in the Purchases tab.
Checkout
Packages can be added to your website via checkout buttons / combined in Multi-item checkout just like normal listings. See this article for more information on how to configure checkout buttons.
Once you’ve added a Package to a checkout button, follow these steps to make a Package booking via checkout:
- Open checkout for the Package that you’d like to book
- Enter Booking Details
- Enter guest quantity
- Select date and time for each event
- Note: when a customer makes a Package booking via checkout, you will be prevented from choosing events that overlap with one another in duration.
- Enter Add-on quantity for each event
- Fill out Contact Info
- Select Continue
- Enter Gift, Affiliate, or voucher Code
- Note: Currently, discount coupon codes cannot be used for Package bookings.
- Enter Credit card details
- Note: Package bookings are handled as one single transaction for customers
- Agree to Terms and Conditions (If configured in your account)
- Fill out Questionnaire (If configured in your account)
- Sign electronic Waiver (If configured in your account)
Note: If you are using Custom Conversion Tracking, only the first transaction in a completed checkout using Packages will be accounted for. Click here to learn more about Custom Conversion Tracking.
Emails
When a Package booking is made, customers will receive one Booking Confirmation Email that contains:
- Itemized payment summary
- Time, date, checklist and meeting location for each individual event booked
- Package Other Considerations
- Package Cancellation Policy
- package Terms and Conditions
- Your company's contact info
How to Modify Package Bookings
Change Arrival
This works the same way for package bookings as it does for normal purchases. You can find more detail on how to Modify a Bookings Arrival here.
Remember for packages: Since there are multiple discrete bookings that make up a Package booking, you will modify the arrival of one booking at a time.
Change Guest Quantity
This works the same way for package bookings as it does for normal purchases. You can find more detail on how to Change guest count for a booking here.
Modify Add-ons
This works the same way for package bookings as it does for normal purchases. You can find more detail on how to Modify Add-ons for a booking here.
Remember for packages: Since there are multiple discrete bookings that make up a Package booking, you will modify the Add-ons for one booking at a time.
Add a Charge
This works the same way for package bookings as it does for normal purchases. You can find more detail on how to Add a Charge for a booking here.
Remember for packages: Since there are multiple discrete bookings that make up a Package booking, you will need to choose which particular event this charge is applicable to. This will help you when reporting on Transactions or performing forensics on a booking.
Switch Experience
Switch experience is not currently available for Package bookings.
Add Code Post-Purchase
You can add Affiliate and Gift codes to Package bookings by selecting the Add Code button on the Purchases tab.
Currently, discount coupons cannot be added to package bookings.