Best way to generate order numbers for an online store?

Question

Every order in my online store has a user-facing order number. I\'m wondering the best way to generate them. Criteria include:

• Short
• Easy to say over the

Answer 1

I'd rather submit the number 347 and get great customer service at a smaller personable website than: G-84e38wRD-45OM at the mega-site and be ignored for a week.

You would not want this as a system id or part of a link, but as a user-friendly number it works.