What is bookable retail?
Bookable retail is selling time-based experiences, like classes, tastings, tours and workshops, through the same store, checkout and customer record as your products. A booking isn’t a separate ticket on someone else’s platform. It’s a retail sale, made on your brand, to a customer you already know.
Bookable retail vs. ticketing and booking
Ticketing
Sells admission to an event. It usually happens on a ticketing platform, with its own checkout and its own customer list.
Booking
Reserves a time with a person or a place, like an appointment or a table.
Bookable retail
Sells an experience the way a store sells a product: on your site, in your checkout, next to your merchandise and under your brand.
What it looks like
- A winery sells tastings and vineyard tours next to its bottles, so a guest can book a tasting and add a case in the same checkout.
- A kitchen store runs cooking classes, and students can buy the pans they cooked with.
- A bike shop offers guided rides and repair clinics to the same customers who buy its bikes.
- A yarn shop fills weekend workshops with knitters who already shop there.
Why retailers do it
Customers come back
An experience gives people a reason to visit again, not just a reason to buy once.
Bigger orders
People who book often buy something too, and they can do both in one checkout.
One customer record
Every booking lands in Shopify with the rest of that customer’s orders, so you can see who your best customers are.
Your brand, your store
Customers book on your site, not on a marketplace that also shows them your competitors.
How Experiences does it
Experiences is a Shopify app built for bookable retail. You set up an experience with its timeslots and capacity, and customers book it right on your store. They pick a timeslot and pay through Shopify checkout, alongside anything else in their cart. Every booking gets confirmation emails and reminders, with optional e-tickets. Your team can also take bookings in person with the Experiences POS app in Shopify POS.
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