How to Create Order Forms on Google Forms

Step 1: Set up your Google Form

First, sign into your Google account to access Google Forms. Create a new order form with the following information:

• Form name: Choose something that’s easy for you to remember and descriptive for your customers.
• Description: Add a short description about your business, and the purpose of the form. Include any contact information and other important order information like pickup and delivery schedules if you’re a food delivery service.
• Branding: In the “Settings” section, there are many different pre-made themes you can choose from or you can customize the branding with your own unique colors and graphics.  

Step 2: Capture customer information

In order to accurately process orders, you of course need to gather information about your customers! Here are some customer information fields you might want to add to your form:

• Customer name
• Email address
• Contact number
• Preferred contact method — phone, text, email
• Address (if applicable)

To make sure that clients provide the required data accurately, you should add response validation rules. For example, you can set fields like name and email address to be required, and contact number fields to only accept numbers. By adding validation, you'll be able to avoid getting orders that aren't complete, which can cause confusion, additional administration, and order delays.

Step 3: Create a section for order details

Add a new section for order details to your Google Form. This will be the meat of your order form. You can use Google Forms’ many question options like dropdown, checkboxes, and multiple choice questions to create the order form that makes the most sense for your business. 

For example, if you’re offering shirts with different size and color combinations, you might want to offer a dropdown or multiple choice question.

If you’re selling products with different quantities, you can also create a “Quantity” input field with a number validation rule for each product.

If you’re offering pickup and delivery options, you can use the “Date” and “Time” fields to let customers specify their desired fulfillment times.

Step 4: Include a total cost calculation field

Google Forms doesn’t automatically provide total cost calculation. However, you can provide an input field at the end of the form that asks your customers to calculate the total cost of their order before they submit the form. Unfortunately, you will still have to double check that your customer calculated the total costs properly.

If you would like to automate total cost calculation, consider using a solution like FormPay, which combines the ease of Google Forms with the power of ecommerce. It includes automatic cost calculation, integrated payments, automatic order confirmation, and an online order management system. 

Step 5: Add payment options

In order to collect payment from clients after they have completed the form, you must add payment options to your Google Forms. Although Google Forms does not directly support payment processing, you can still accept payments in a variety of other ways including:

• Third-party payment links like PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, CashApp or Zelle
• Google Workspace payments add-ons like Neartail

These payment options each have their downsides since they’re not integrated into Google Forms. For a more streamlined and integrated solution, FormPay is a better option.

Step 6: Test the form with a dummy order

It's essential to thoroughly test your order form to make sure it functions as intended. With testing, you can find any potential problems or areas of confusion by testing your order form before your customers notice them.

You can also enlist the assistance of a friend or relative to test the form. They might view things differently and be able to spot things you might have overlooked.

Examine your order form carefully as you test it to look for any potential areas of confusion or usability issues. This might involve problems with the navigation, ambiguous instructions, or challenging fields. Make the necessary changes to the form if there are any areas that could use improvement. In addition, you should test the payment process and notifications setup to ensure that it works as expected. 

Step 7: Share the order form

Once you’re confident with your order form, it’s time to share it with your customers! Press the “Send” button to generate a link that you can add to your social media profiles or message to your customers on Whatsapp. If you have a website, you can use the “embed” option to embed the form directly into your website.

Use FormPay’s order form as an alternative

Although Google Forms can be used to quickly set up order forms, it has a ton of limitations since it wasn’t built for online sales and businesses. Instead of trying to hack together a subpar customer experience on Google Forms, try FormPay as a better alternative. FormPay’s tailored ecommerce solution is a big step up with all the familiarity of Google Forms, but features that are designed for ecommerce businesses.