Getting started
A five-minute tour of the two websites, who uses each, and the ideas that appear everywhere.
The Plaistow Halal Butchers system is two websites that work together.
The customer website
Open to the public. Customers browse cuts, build an order by weight, choose collection or delivery, and pay.
The admin portal
Private, staff-only. You approve orders, publish daily stock, edit the catalogue and manage the whole shop.
Who does what
A customer places an order
They visit the customer website, add cuts to their basket, pick a collection or delivery slot, enter their details and pay by card (or choose to pay when they collect). See Placing an order.
The order appears in the admin portal
Every order lands in Orders. Card-paid orders are confirmed automatically; pay-on-collection orders wait for a staff member to approve them. See Managing orders.
Staff prepare and hand over
Staff move the order along its stages — preparing → ready → collected or out for delivery → delivered — cutting the meat fresh and handing it over or sending it out.
Stock and slots keep everything honest
The shop publishes how much of each cut is available each day, and how many collection/delivery windows exist. The website only ever lets customers order what is genuinely available. See Daily stock and Collection & delivery slots.
Ideas that appear everywhere
A few concepts show up across both websites. Understanding them once makes the rest of the manual easy.
Fixed weight bands
Meat is sold in fixed sizes such as 500 g and 1 kg, never as a random final weight. When a customer orders "1.5 kg of lamb" the system builds it from bands (1 × 1 kg + 1 × 500 g). This keeps prices exact and predictable.
Reservations (a 30-minute hold)
When a customer reaches checkout, the system holds their stock and their chosen slot for 30 minutes so nobody else can take them mid-payment. If they do not finish, the hold is released automatically and the items return to the pool.
Collection vs delivery
Every order is either collection (free, picked up from the shop) or delivery (within the shop's mapped delivery area, with a fee below the free threshold). The customer chooses one at checkout.
The exact numbers — the free-delivery threshold, the same-day cut-off time — are listed in Shop rules & limits, and every status word is explained in the Glossary.
Where to go next
- New to the customer side? Start at The customer website.
- Running the shop? Start at The admin portal.
- Just want definitions? Jump to the Glossary.