Skip to content
English
Contact us
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Let customers order in imperial or metric

Let customers order in inches or millimeters: set both units and a precision on each measurement, set a company's units, and send metric confirmations.

A customer orders in the units set on their company, and Allmoxy converts the numbers for you. For that to work, every measurement your customers type (height, width, depth) needs both an imperial unit and a metric unit, each with its own precision.

Applies to: every shop. Editing attributes and output pages needs the Edit the site settings permission.

In this article

How Allmoxy picks the units

The units come from the company of the person placing the order, so an order has to be placed from the customer's own account to use their units. If you enter an order for them from your account, it uses your units, because your company is the one placing it.

To change a customer's units, open their company, click Edit, and under Company Info set the default units to imperial or metric.

Set both units on each measurement

  1. Go to Settings > E-commerce > Product Attributes and open a measurement attribute, such as height, width or depth.
  2. Scroll down to the number settings. You'll see menus for the imperial unit and the metric unit.
  3. Choose one from each menu. Make sure both measure the same thing: inches and centimeters both measure length, while milliliters measure volume.
  4. Set the precision for both units. If your customers order in millimeters, set the metric precision so their entries aren't rounded. See Set measurement precision and show fractions.
  5. Save, and repeat for every attribute customers type a measurement into.

Now customers can place orders in imperial or metric.

Send confirmations in the customer's units

Your shop works in inches, but a metric customer wants their confirmation in millimeters (or the other way around). The way to do it is a second output page that shows a converted part.

  1. Go to Settings > E-commerce > Output Pages and create another output page, for example "Order Confirmation Metric". Make it a Parts List style page and check Show Parts on this Output Page.
  2. Open each product and add a metric conversion part. Copy the formula you want to show (the width, say), then multiply or divide by the conversion. For a width entered in inches, width * 25.4 gives millimeters. Keep the parentheses when the formula is an expression, for example (width - 1.5) * 25.4.
  3. Set that part to show only on the new output page.
  4. Send metric customers the new page.

Worked example: a 24 13/32 in panel (24.40625 in) comes out at 24.40625 x 25.4 = 619.91875 mm, which prints as 620 mm at whole-number precision.

For the output page settings, see Guide: Output pages and Products and parts.

Check that it worked

Log in as the customer (or place a test order from a metric test account) and hover over a measurement field on the order page. The unit of measurement pops up. Save the order and check the numbers on the confirmation.

Things to know

  • A customer can't see your products after you changed their units? An attribute is probably missing the unit for their system, or its two units don't measure the same thing. Open the attribute and check both menus.
  • Precision is per unit. A fine imperial precision doesn't help a metric customer; set the metric precision too, and make both fine enough that a measurement converted from one unit to the other doesn't get rounded away.
  • Employees see their own units. That's by design: the order is placed from your company.

Related articles