Website deposits and buy online

Two optional buttons on your vehicle pages let shoppers commit before they visit. Reserve this vehicle takes a deposit and holds the unit for a few days. Buy online lets the shopper start a deal: add a trade-in, choose how to pay, sign the purchase agreement and pay what is due now. Both are switched off until you turn them on.

Before you start #

• Deposits and buy online need a plan with the sales CRM (Pro and Enterprise).
• Card payment uses your own Stripe account. Money goes straight to you; MotoDealerHQ never sees card details.
• Without Stripe, both buttons still work, but nobody pays online: the shopper sends a request ("Request to reserve") or signs a deal, and your team follows up.

Turn on deposits and buy online #

1. Open Finance › Deposits & online deals.
2. Under Website deposits, tick Show "Reserve this vehicle" on available vehicles. Set the Default deposit ($) (500 by default), the Default type (refundable or non-refundable), the Hold length (days) (1 to 90, 7 by default) and Refunds issued within (days).
3. Leave Mark the vehicle "Pending" when a deposit is paid ticked if a paid deposit should take the unit off the market. It stays on the website with a "Sale pending" badge and can no longer be reserved.
4. Under Buy online, tick Show "Buy online" on available vehicles with a price. Decide whether The trade-in allowance reduces the taxable amount (check your state's rule).
5. Add up to ten Default fee lines added to every new deal, such as freight or prep, and tick Taxable where it applies.
6. Under Agreements, fill in Governing law and a Dispute contact.
7. Select Save settings.

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1. Website deposits (steps 2 and 3).
2. Buy online (step 4).
3. Default fee lines (step 5).
4. Agreements (step 6).

Override a single vehicle #

Each vehicle can differ from your defaults. Open the vehicle in Inventory › Vehicles, find Deposits, and set Website deposit to Dealership default, Custom amount (then enter the Custom deposit ($)) or No deposits for this vehicle. You can also make that unit refundable or non-refundable.

Review the agreement text #

Further down the same page, Agreement text holds three agreements: the refundable deposit agreement, the non-refundable deposit agreement and the online purchase agreement. They start from a careful default (amount, hold, refunds, no guarantee of financing, price and tax disclosure, governing law, electronic signature consent and the dispute contact). Edit them with your lawyer and save each one. Every save is a new version; customers who already signed keep the exact text they saw.

What the shopper sees #

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1. Reserve: with Stripe live it reads "Reserve this vehicle — $500 deposit (refundable)". Without it, Request to reserve with "No payment online; we will contact you to hold it."
2. Buy online starts an online deal.

Reserving: the shopper enters their details, reads the deposit agreement, types their full name to sign and continues to Stripe to pay. When the payment arrives, the unit is held (and marked Pending if you chose that), the hold end date is set and your team is notified. Without online payment, the request arrives as a lead and you call them.

Buying online: the shopper enters their details and gets a private deal page with six steps: vehicle and price, trade-in, how they will pay, review, sign and pay. You confirm the numbers before they sign. See deals and desking for the staff side.

Every signature stores the exact text, its fingerprint, the time and the typed name. If you change the terms while a shopper has the page open, their signature is refused and they see the new text.

Manage deposits #

Deposits show on the lead's Deals & deposits panel and on the deal.

• Release hold ends the hold early and keeps the deposit.
• Cancel cancels an unpaid deposit.
• To refund a paid deposit, refund the card in your Stripe dashboard, then open the deposit invoice and select Mark refunded on the payment (see invoices and payments). That lifts the hold.
• When a paid hold runs out without a signed deal, the salesperson and deal managers get one reminder.
• Paid deposits for the same customer and vehicle are credited when you create, edit or send their deal.

Tips #

• Start with refundable deposits. They convert better and are easier to explain.
• Keep the hold short (a week) so units do not sit off the market.
• Only one paid deposit can hold a unit. If two shoppers pay at the same moment, the second becomes a Conflict and accounting is told to refund it.

Permissions #

Limitations #