Set up one-time products

A big part of any modern e-commerce business is to support multiple ways of offering products. Firmhouse lets you set up products to be shipped only once in addition to setting up products to be shipped on a recurring basis. This article explains how ship only once products behave when being ordered and how you can leverage them to support various use cases.

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How to Set Up a Product to Be Shipped Only Once

When creating or editing a Product in Firmhouse, you can configure various order generation and shipment settings in the Logistics section. In the Logistics section, you can set the product to be shipped Only once.

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One-Time Products Become Inactive After Order Generation

Note: This is currently available only on Smart Order-based projects.

Whenever Firmhouse generates an order for an only once product, it will be removed as an active product from the customer. By default, the product will no longer be available in the Customer Portal and will not be taken into account for any shipping cost calculation. You can make selected consumables available to add again by enabling repeat ordering as described below. In the Firmhouse Portal, these products will show up in the inactive products list and will get the status owned.

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Allow Customers to Reorder a One-Time Product

By default, an only once product can be ordered once per subscription. For consumables that customers may need again, such as filters, refills, or recycling bags, you can allow repeat ordering:

1. Open the product in the Firmhouse Portal.
2. Enable Customers can reorder this product after it ships.
3. Make sure the product is also available in the Customer Portal.

After an order is generated, the purchase remains in the inactive products history with the status owned. The product becomes available under Add products again. Previous owned or returned entries do not prevent another order; the product remains unavailable only while an active copy exists. Enable this only for products that are safe to buy repeatedly. Leave it disabled for hardware, starter kits, gifts, and other products that should be limited to one purchase per subscription.

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Use Cases for One-Time Products

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Traditional One-Time E-commerce Checkouts

By default, the only once setting on Firmhouse products will make them behave as you expect in a traditional e-commerce flow: the customer adds products to their cart, finishes checkout, and gets them delivered at home. So if a customer puts only only once products in their cart, it will behave as a traditional e-commerce order at checkout.

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Hybrid Carts with One-Time Products and Subscription Products

You can mix and match one-time products and subscriptions in one cart and checkout. This allows your customers to browse products from your regular product catalog and at the same time subscribe to products made available for subscriptions.

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Free or Premium Add-ons to Initial Order

Some merchants offer freebies or add-on products to an initial order as part of a campaign or as part of their default setup. For example, when starting a subscription on washing cloths, a storage box can be added to the initial order. The one-time storage box is set as an only once product so that it only gets shipped on the first order. After the initial order is generated, the storage box is removed as an active product from a customer account or subscription.

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One-Time Additions or Upsells During a Subscription Lifetime

It’s possible that your customer or you as a merchant would like to add a product to a subscription so it will be shipped out on their next order, but only once. Allow your customers to add these one-time products to their next orders as part of a campaign or because you want to make something right after you messed up an order. You can also use this to offer a special selection of products as promotion during seasonal events such as the holiday season.