Production Advantage, Inc.

How to Use Our Website

Welcome to the new and improved ProductionAdvantageOnline.com website! Here are a few things you should know to help make your experience with this site a good one.

For instance, we’re starting with limited product offerings. As we move forward, we will be adding new items and new product categories for immediate purchase, and our familiar price lists will be back up on the web for those customers working on their budgets. Items such as touring racks and custom soft goods will always require a phone call. We want to be sure that we get you exactly what you are looking for!

Also, we are limiting online orders to credit card or purchasing card payment for now. Domestic shipments only, please. Customers with open accounts can set up orders using the online Wish List function and then call when convenient with a purchase order. One of our Customer Service Representatives will confirm the details at that time. In fact, you can enter an order using the shopping cart and if you want to use a PO, have any questions about items on the order or want to check delivery time, just stop where you are and give us a call. We'll help you complete the order right then and there. What if we're closed? Enter your order or Wish List items and log out anytime before the order is submitted. Your Wish List is saved for future access. Shopping carts are usually saved for three days. You will also be able to view your past orders! (We'll go into more details later.)

Our new website is meant to be an extension of the excellent customer service that Production Advantage, Inc. has always strived to provide, and was built with our customers in mind. If you have any questions, compliments, complaints, suggestions, or difficulties regarding our site, please call us. Our knowledgeable staff, as always, will gladly assist you!

Navigating our site

Each page of our site contains four navigation tools:

1) the top navigation line,

2) the “Browse products by category” menu on the left hand side of the screen,

3) the “More on our site” menu, also on the left,

4) and the ever changing “Featured Products” links on the right hand side of the screen.

The top navigation menu facilitates those actions that we and our customers deem most important. It allows you to access your personal account, view your current shopping cart or Wish List, request a hard copy of our catalog, contact us, view our wide-ranging PDF price lists, and access our comprehensive Site Map.

To view our PDF price list pages click on “Price List” in the top navigation menu. That will take you to the product category index. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the thousands of items listed there. If you don't have Acrobat Reader you can download the latest version from Adobe's website. The latest version has a search function that will help you find what you are looking for on the individual pages.

Each of the links in the list will open a category-specific PDF price list with items appearing in alphabetical order by description. Since these are static pages and not linked directly to our database the prices there should be used for reference only, as they are subject to change without notice. Please call to confirm pricing before making your final purchase.

The “Browse products by category” menu will help you to peruse the products on our site through the use of a hierarchical structure. If you're not quite sure what you're looking for, this might be a good way to shop.

The “More on our site” menu contains links to more general information about our company.

And lastly, “Featured Products” alerts you to products that we deem to be an exceptional value. Click on any of the products to go directly to a page where you can add them to a cart or Wish List, or click on to view the entire list of great products at great prices.

If your know what you're looking for, will be a great time saver. Just enter your search term(s) and click . If too many results are returned, focus your search by adding another word. This is a very powerful tool for the web savvy user.

An even more specific search tool is the “Order by catalog #” field. If you know our catalog number, for example FIXT-0073 for a Source Four 36°, this will take you right to it.

And lastly, if you ever want to return to the home page, just click on our logo or our motto at the top of the page:

or the footer:

Opening a new account

STOP! If you have purchased from Production Advantage, Inc. before and are still working for the same company or are purchasing as an individual DO NOT OPEN A NEW ACCOUNT! You already have a customer record and should proceed to the section on accessing your account.

If you have never purchased from Production Advantage, Inc. before or are working for a new company that may or may not have ordered from us before you can open a new account by clicking on “Your Account” in the top navigation line and then clicking on

Accessing your account

Once you have an account you can access it by clicking on “Your Account” in the top navigation line and entering your e-mail address and password in the proper fields and clicking .

If you click and fill in your e-mail address, our server will promptly e-mail you your password.

Using your account

Once you have logged in, you will see this screen:

Each time you log in you will be given the opportunity to change your password. If you are logging in for the first time with a default password it is recommended that you take this opportunity to change it to a secure and memorable password. You do not have to change your password every time you log in, but you can whenever you like. Once your have entered your old password once and your new password twice it is necessary to click at the bottom of the page. This will take you to a confirmation screen. To get back to the “My Account” screen simply click on Your Account in the top navigation line. You will remain logged in.

The “Bill to Address” is somewhat misnamed. This simply means that this is your primary customer record. If your account is set up such that the bills go to another's attention or to another address they will continue to do so. Some of you may notice that your Name is in the Company field and visa versa. This is OK. Please do not make any changes to the way your record is formatted. It is correct in our database based on your type of business. If you should ever leave the company for which this customer record exists please do not change the record to match your new address or employer. A new record will have to be created.

will allow you to view all of your past orders (placed after the upgrade to our current system) and current orders. You can also view quotations from this list. From the “My Orders” screen you can view the details of a particular order, or track your order, or portions of your order, if tracking numbers are available.

Once you are viewing the details of an order on the “Order Summary” page you can either click again to go back to the list of your orders, or you can click to duplicate past orders. Once an order is duplicated a new shopping cart will be opened and you can finish the reorder as is, change quantities, add items, or delete items.

Other than that you can shop as usual—with one minor exception…

Wish lists

A Wish List is a special type of quotation. The following are the rules governing Wish Lists, Quotations, and Orders (Shopping Carts):

• A customer must be logged in to view or add to a “Wish List.”
• In order to view or make changes to a “Wish List” a customer must click “Wish List” at the top of the page.
• A customer can only have one active “Wish List” at a time, and all items added to a “Wish List” will go onto it.
• Items from a “Wish List” can be added to a new or active cart for purchase one at a time, several at a time, or all at once.
• Items added to a Cart from a “Wish List” are removed from the “Wish List.”
• Quotations that are separate from a “Wish List” can only be viewed online in “My Orders” and items from them cannot be added to a cart one at a time.
• Once the order summary for a non-“Wish List” quotation is in view the items can only be added to a cart as a whole by clicking the “Reorder” button.
• Orders created from a quotation using do not receive a cookie and cannot be accessed again online if a customer ends their session before finishing the order. (We’re working to fix this.) The quotation can be accessed by our Customer Service Representatives.
• If a customer has an active cart, items in a non-“Wish List” quotation cannot be added to it using the method outlined above.
• A quotation that is ordered using does not get “filled” (turned into an order) in the same way a quotation normally would. It remains a quotation and a new cart (order) is created with the same items.

We hope that your shopping experience is beyond excellent. Again, should you have any questions, compliments, complaints, suggestions, or difficulties regarding our site, please contact us by whatever method is most convenient for you.

Thank you for your interest in Production Advantage, Inc.