Use a form you already have

If your website already has a contact form, you can keep it and have it send to TradeSender. This page is for whoever looks after the website: they need to change where the form sends, or add a webhook in a form tool. Owners and office members copy the form address from Settings, on the web or in the iPhone or Android app.

Copy your form address

Open Settings, then Website and portal. Beside Your own form address, choose Copy address. The note under the group lists the field names your form sends. In the iPhone and Android apps, tap Your own form address under Website and portal to copy it.

The address ends in your form key:

https://app.tradesender.co.uk/api/v1/public/enquiry_forms/YOUR_FORM_KEY

Keep the https at the start. A form sent to http loses what the person typed.

Point an HTML form at it

Set the form's action to the address and its method to post. Add your own labels and styling.

<form
  action="https://app.tradesender.co.uk/api/v1/public/enquiry_forms/YOUR_FORM_KEY"
  method="post"
  enctype="multipart/form-data"
>
  <input name="name" required />
  <input name="email" type="email" />
  <input name="phone" type="tel" />
  <input name="address_line_1" />
  <input name="city" />
  <input name="postal_code" />
  <textarea name="message"></textarea>
  <input type="file" name="photos[]" accept="image/*" multiple />
  <input type="text" name="_gotcha" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off" />
  <input type="hidden" name="_redirect" value="https://your-website.example/thanks" />
  <button>Send</button>
</form>

enctype="multipart/form-data" is what carries the photos. A form with no photo field can leave it out.

Name the fields

• Nothing is required. TradeSender refuses only a form with nothing in it. Make the name, and a phone number or an email address, required in your own form so that you can reply.
• No name. The enquiry is named after the email address, then the phone number, then "Website enquiry".
• Other names for the same thing. TradeSender also reads the names forms commonly use, such as your-name, tel, mobile, town, postcode and comments. Capitals, spaces, hyphens and underscores make no difference.
• Your own questions. Any other field is kept under the message as its name and its answer, for example "Best time to call: After 4pm". Up to 30 are kept.
• Long answers. A one-line answer is cut at 255 characters, and the whole message at 5,000.

Photos

Name the file field photos[], with the square brackets, and give it multiple. Without the brackets only the last photo arrives.

TradeSender keeps up to 5 photos, each a JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC of 10 MB or less. It leaves out any other file and adds a line to the message saying how many it could not keep.

Two hidden fields

• _gotcha keeps robots out. Hide it and leave it empty. A program that fills in every field fills this one too, and TradeSender throws away what it sent.
• _redirect is the page people land on after sending. It must be on the same website as the form, and its address must begin exactly as the form page's does: https://www.your-website.example and https://your-website.example count as different websites. Leave it out and they land on a TradeSender page with your business name that says "Thanks, your enquiry has been sent."

What comes back

An empty form answers 422. When too many enquiries arrive the address answers 429, and once it has been replaced the old one answers 404. A visitor using a plain HTML form then sees a small page in place of a thank-you page: "Something went wrong", the reason, and "Go back and try again." See Stop unwanted enquiries.

A form tool with a webhook

If your form builder or plugin can send a webhook when someone submits, set your form address as the webhook's address. TradeSender reads JSON as well as ordinary form posts, and matches the field names in the same way.

Photos arrive only when the tool sends the files themselves.

For Contact Form 7 on WordPress, the plugin passes its forms on for you.

Check it works

Send yourself an enquiry through the form, with a photo. Open it in Enquiries and check that the contact details are in the right places and that each of your own questions is under the message. Then choose Delete enquiry.

A developer will find every field, answer and limit in The enquiry form's address.