To 'shadow' a card or not? Deferred payment type?

[pinkypie]

I've been pondering on this a while. At the moment I just put the payment through on authenticate but some cards are still being declined and it is really frustrating and I really wanted Protx to take that hassle away. I've had an order for over £120 today and I have got to order those goods for the customer, if the card is declined I am stuck with goods that will probably not sell.

How do I 'shadow' a customers card?

So, while I do not want to take the money for goods not held in stock I was wondering on what your thoughts were on taking the money for an order?

The way I see it, if someone is committing to spending £50 with me then they should not be spending that money elsewhere so that when I come to process it is declined, however, I do not want to naff off my customers by taking the money for goods not in stock. Goods on order can take 3-10 days (10 at the most these days) so is shadowing the right thing to do?

I am a member of various internet forums and it seems people are very set on 'the money has been taken a contract has been formed' and say, for example, you have listed something at the 1p instead of £10 they reckon that T&C are not worth the paper they are written on and so you can have the goods at 1p if you have made a mistake somewhere and all that blah, blah. If I have not taken the money then there is no case to answer really as they have not 'bought' anything.

What are your presonal thoughts, I am not sure what I should do, any thoughts or experiences? I am just sick of getting the declined payments - there seems to be no easy answer.

Can you log onto your Protx page and 'shadow' a card? How about putting the payment through BEFORE I order the goods for the customer? Good or bad thing?

[mikeyred]

Hiya,

To be honest, I have not tried any other way. I take the money on the order and I have 14 days to dispatch with regard to T&C. The majority of the time it is sent within 3 days but sometimes I have it sent direct from our warehouse in Holland if no stock here, so that would take 5 days, either way.... they are up on the deal. I have spoken with various Friends with ecommerce sites before I started that have tried all the different ways and all have ended up with taken the money at order placement - as is the case with most major branded sites.

So am I loosing any business?, can not say unless I ran two parallel sites with one deferred and then compared. So am I out of pocket, nope!! do I sweat if the customer is going to play up on payment, nope!! because I am on the right side of the deal..... is this costing me, perhaps but, for the small amount of customers that may not purchase on my site, I treat it as a insurance premium for a good nights sleep. If I know I am not going to be able to supply for any reason, through Protx, I can refund in an instance with little cost to myself. So far have not had to do that to be fair.

Different horses for different courses but I think this day and age, the major branded sights have set the trend, so you would not be doing anything unique by paying on order...

[pinkypie]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for answering. I know exactly what you are saying. I have been thinking about this for a while, is this the right thing to do? More over I guess I am worried that should there be a problem the customer will try and sue me or something.

I have been a member of moneysavingexpert.com for years and the number of people who come online saying 'I've bought something obviously priced incorrectly, they have my money but have cancelled my order, can I demand they send the goods for that price?'. The answer, of course, will be no but there is always one clown who says that they should sue and that all e-commerce T&C are not worth anything. I suppose I am worried that I might be sued over something - if I do not have the money then the customer has not bought anything - but if the customer does not have the money I've got to pay for stock they actually do not have the money for.

Vicious circle. So then I thought that the 'shadow' would be the best option.

Does anyone know how I do this? Shadow the card but not take any money as such? Is there an option on Protx I can add?

Why is everything such a headache at the moment. LOL!!

[petad]

We currently take deferred payment, as we feel this is more professional. If we have any issues with the order, late delivery for example, it is always better to be able to say that no money has been taken yet. And saying that all the major brands take money up front is not entirely true. The biggest online brand - Amazon - only take customer payment on shipment.

We use PayPal Pro, and when the card details are entered at time of order, an authorisation for the amount is submitted, which "reserves" the money on their account (is this the same as shadowing?). It is rare for the payment to be declined subsequently when we come to actually take the payment, though not unheard of.

I think the issue of selling something for the wrong price and having to supply it is a minor one - worst comes to worst just write it off to experience, much less of a problem than risking a law suit.

That's my two cents worth...

[pinkypie]

It depends what it is though Pete, I've seen some greedy people buy 100's of things and then once the orders do not come through, because the price is clearly wrong, complain like hell and still want it. I've been a member on these forums too long I am afraid and I know how greedy people can be, so this is always in the back of my mind.

A while back this website had some flash keys listed for a silly price and they were clearly inundated with orders and refused them all - there was pages and pages of threads of negative comments about this company - and if googled people are going to find all of these bad things said about the company for years but lots of people were threatening legal action over something stupid as this - but that is the mentality of people these days, everyone wants something for nothing. And it scares the hell out of me!!

I've not used Paypal apart from the odd occassion since someone bought from me on eBay, left positive feedback - and then the customer did a chargeback saying unauthorised card use. Paypal took £7 from me for 'accepting a fraudulant card' and on that day I removed Paypal from my website and only take it if a customer asks (nicely!!). They are the ones who do the checks and they have the audactity to charge me for this!! I was fuming. Of course, a few months later Paypal found the customer had lied but I never saw my £7. It's not the amount though it's the principle and so far, apart from to pay, I very rarely use them now because they are <choose your own words here>.

[little-linguist]

I think you can use Protx deferred payment type (rather than authenticate and authorise) to ensure that the money is held for you. I'm not sure how long it is "held" for though; I have a feeling it might only be a max of 7 days.

Personally, I think that if items are special order, and are identified as such on your website, then it is perfectly reasonable to bill customers when you place your order with the supplier. At the end of the day, if they change their mind / their card can't be billed or whatever, you shouldn't be out of pocket and stuck with some goods that are difficult to shift. If goods are normally stocked and are just out of stock at the time of ordering, that's a different matter as presumably, if for whatever reason you didn't complete the sale, the goods would be held in stock ready for a future sale anyway.

We use authenticate and authorise and normally only bill cards on the day of picking / packing / shipping. However, if we are making a special order for the customer then we will bill them before we place orders with the supplier and let them know through Ts&Cs etc. As a customer I wouldn't have a problem with this.

[Gillf]

Hi

I am with WorldPay rather than Protx so am a bit of an outsider on this theme. But since we are both in undies I thought I should drop in. We use the deferred method and have nearly a month to collect the monies. So check with Protx they might be as long as WP.

Two reasons we use deferred, one is it is much more professional and does not give the customer a stick to hit us with if the delivery is delayed and the other reason is that if you are shipping to the States I believe it is a legal requirement not to take the money until you are ready to ship (though how they can police this law I don't know).

Bye for now
Gill
Luxury Lingerie

[pinkypie]

Thanks everyone. I've had a thought on this and I am going to stick with what I am doing now but there will be an exception on goods that are Special Order and I'll bill them at the time of order if the order is a big one, this way I am covered - the od 2 oe 3items aweek I can deal with but when it is one big order then I think I need to cover my back. So my job for today will be to amend the T&C and then bill that big order before the things are ordered.

It was interesting to hear other people's point of view on this though. It is such a minefield.

I've just started 'special offers' with £10 off selected items on the site - these would be things I've ordered in for people that I know I have little or no chance of shifting.

I've not had the time to give the site this week with it being the kids holiday from school. I've a ton of paperwork too - that time of year - and having realised that now is the best time to write off the stock that got ruined over the Easter when some moisture got into the storage shed, plus end of year and end of tax year. Urgh!