Get started with Limio Commerce

Limio is an enterprise commerce application and there’s a couple of steps to take before you can start selling. In this onboarding guide, we’ll cover how to set up key third-party applications for billing, payments, authentication. We’ll also cover the basics setup of a sandbox and tease out some more advanced setups options. Each link will reference a more detailed document, so you can always get more details where you need.

Add users

Ecommerce is a team effort, and marketers, product managers, developers and operation staff will often need access to Limio. Go to Users to add more team members. You’ll also be able to configure access and permissions. Tenant Administrator will give you the most flexibility in a sandbox.

Integrations

Limio works with other applications and can be connected with no code. Here are the applications you’ll need to connect to get started:

• Zuora. Go to Settings > Zuora and add your client id and secret. 
• Salesforce. Go to Settings > Salesforce and set up an OAuth client. 

You can set up those in Settings > Integration.

Another key integration is authentication, in Settings > Authentication Providers. This one may require an IT admin. You can select OpenID, SAML, or more to get started. You can do this step later and use Limio’s default authentication to get started.

Take a minute to also configure some payment gateways in your Zuora settings. This will allow you to rapidly take payments. To start with, we’d recommend to set up a credit and debit card gateway, such as Stripe or CyberSource. Learn more here:

Loading up Limio Catalog

The fastest way to load the Limio Catalog is to use the Catalog Sync with Zuora. This will not only store a local copy of your Zuora catalog in Limio but create Limio Products and Offers automatically for you. In this guide, we’ll assume you’ve created already data in Zuora, but if you haven’t, read Zuora’s quick start guide on the product catalog.

The sync will automatically populate your Limio data. Review the products created. If they are physical product, you should toggle on the delivery option. You can also attach entitlements that you wish to track.

Then, review the Limio Offers to make sure all the configuration is appropriate. Limio Offers is the commercial proposition sold to your customers. So it includes:

• Display fields, which is what the end customer see
• Billing configuration, which defines how Limio will integrate with the billing
• Product(s), which also includes the ability to define a default rate or pricing plan from the billing system
• The Ecommerce behaviour, which will drive the experience for the end customer

A full list of what each field does is available here. To get started, just put a display name, a display price, check the billing and product configuration, and set an allowable country.

One note on pricing. Limio is able to use your externally-defined pricing or override with a pricing set it Limio.  Learn more in initial pricing vs. external pricing.

Limio isn’t just for simple subscriptions and you can also sell one-off, bundles, gift and group subscriptions. Setup will vary a bit so take a look at what is needed for your use case.

Last step, define labels, which is the way to attach an offer to a pricing page. A label could be ‘Default Offers for USA’ or ‘Black Friday Specials’. Labels are important in Limio: they allow you to group offers and later can drive logic like upgrade path.

Create your pages

Now for the exciting part: creating your ecommerce experience. We’ll cover the basics of acquisition flow:

• Pricing page: create your first page, set a tag such as /pricing for the URL at which the page will be available, and attach your offer label. Then populate the page with Limio Components. At a minimu, typical components to use will be Header with Navigation, Offers, and Footer. You should see your offers on the page. The CTA will automatically go to the checkout link defined on the offers (the default is /checkout).
• Checkout: create a checkout page using the tag /checkout. Mark the page as authenticated (this is optional but a common setup). Drag the checkout Form component and enter the sub component manager to create the fields you want to have. For a digital product, those will typically be First Name, Last Name, Email, Address (Billing), Payments and a checkbox field for T&Cs. Set an order complete link such as /order-complete.
• Order complete: Similar to the previous page, set a tag such as /order-complete. Then drag the order confirmation component.

That’s it, those are the core pages for a purchase funnel! Click on the Builds button at the top of the page and publish the page to make it available online.

From here, you will typically start customising the design via CSS or deploy custom components for more control. You may want to also route traffic intelligently, for example customers from certain countries can see a specific page. And you’ll probably want to create multiple pricing pages, or route customers to purchase via promo codes and purchase links.

Time to test a purchase

Publish, hit your /pricing page, go through the funnel. In a sandbox, use a test email address (e.g. [e-mail]) and a test card (4242 4242 4242 4242 usually works across gateways) to authenticate and process your first order.

This should automatically populate limio and Zuora. If there’s is an issue, head to events to see what has gone wrong and modify the relevant configuration.

Self-Service.

Ok acquisition done, now what about self-service? Here are some pages to create:

• My Account: create a page where subscribers can view their subscriptions, their payment methods and invoices. Set up a URL such as /myaccount and drag the Order Table, Payment Table, and Invoice Table. On the order table, you can set links to the switch (upgrade/downgrade), cancel and cancel/save, add-ons, win back experiences.
• Upgrade/downgrade: this page will allow subscribers to change their current offer. Create a URL such as /upgrade, attach switch offers via a label, and drop the Switch Subscription component. You can configure the page to redirect to My Account or create a success page with an Order Change Success component. Learn more at:
• Cancel: the cancel experience can be as simple as a cancel button or a multi-step flow, for example a cancel reason survey, a page outlining benefits, a cancel/save offer and a confirmation of changes or cancellation.

All pages should be authenticated, as they won’t load without identifying the customers.

Once your pages are live, you will have the basics of self-service. Publish them and see the changes taking effect in Limio and connected apps such as Zuora. More details on how Limio updates other systems here.

But what if you have multiple products, brands or want to personalise the switch or cancellation experience? You’ll be able to use Limio Journeys, which allows you to redirect subscribers to specific experiences dynamically based on the initial offer they purchased or their segment. 

Want more control over the design and the rules to execute during an upgrade or downgrade? Custom components coupled with Limio User and Subscription SDK gives you full creative control. 

Time to test self-service

You’ll need to process a purchase as described above in order to have publishing Publish, hit your /myaccount page, then try the various flows you have setup. Limio will automatically handle the display of a subscription updates, but you can always create your own experiences via custom components.

Advanced setup

Alright basics done, now let’s cover some of the more advanced setup:

• Analytics: Limio can feed user events via a data layer to popular tag manager such as Google Tag Manager and Tealium, to feed into various analytics tool. Learn more here
• Security: ecommerce attracts fraudsters and Limio has a series of security features to deter them. Learn more how what to set up here
• Tax: Limio will automatically show tax when available, but finer control are available. Learn more here
• SEO: Limio gives you control over what is surfaced to search engines. Learn more here.
• Webhooks: have custom applications you want to act on an order or change, for example for fulfillment or provisioning? Our webhooks are there to help.
• Custom domain: your shop and self-service can be hosted on your own custom domain. Learn more how to do that here.
• Salesforce: Limio can integrate with vanilla Salesforce via Platform Events and also has a dedicated apps for agent commerce in Salesforce. 
• Third-party initiated changes: You can update Limio Subscriptions via a simple endpoint, and we’ll take care of the rest. Learn more here.
• Abandon basket: Limio can provide a list of unfinished basket that can then be retargeted via notifications, email or ads. Learn more here.

You may also have industry-specific needs, such as selling add-ons alongside core tiered subscription in SaaS or wanting to display the Limio Shop in a paywall. 

Operationalise your ecommerce

Once you’ve got the shop and self-service setup, Limio will automatically populate the following core objects:

• Customers
• Orders
• Subscriptions
• Events and process events

All customer-initiated action will have an event, and each event has a process events which includes detailed callout to third-party systems, error messages and detailed logs. Head there to troubleshoot any issues.

We’re here to help

We’ve written this guide so you could get started and understand how to produce your shop and self-service. But we’re here to help! Reach out to us at [e-mail] if you are new to the platform or [e-mail] if you are a current customer.