Items in basket spontaneously converting to a 'ghost' sale

[HornseaJars]

HI,

I had a customer put an item in my shop in their basket. This showed up in my channel management software, Expandly, as a sale. As I was very busy I didn't notice it was showing as unpaid, my bad. I boxed it up and bought postage, and I went to ETSY to leave the customer a message saying I was just about to post it but the order was not there. No sign of it. I searched with the order number Expandly gave me and nothing. 

I emailed the customer (I had all her details) and she tells me that she had multiple messages from other sellers regarding other items she had in her basket. The money has not been taken from her account. This has happened to me before, and both Expandly and ETSY denied all knowledge.

Has anyone else had this happen?

Tony

[PillowDetails]

Well, now you know to check Etsy first.  Sometimes orders show up, and disappear - they didn't make it through payment processing.

[HornseaJars]

Hi,

yes, but that's not what happened here. No order was placed, the item was simply in the ETSY shopper's basket, along with several other items, as a way of keeping track of them while she made her mind up which to buy.

[bradgoodell]

Your channel management software should be set not to pull orders until they complete.  Sounds like she placed her order, it started to process, and then somewhere along the line her card was rejected.  This can happen if the sale flags somewhere along the way.  

[HornseaJars]

No, she didn't place an order, she was just putting stuff in her basket as a way of keeping track of them while she decided which item to buy. 

[HornseaJars]

If ETSY tells the cms there is an order, it will show it. It was showing as Not Paid, which I should have noticed, but  that is correct behaviour if an order has been placed. It would have changed status to Paid if a payment had been made. The issue here is the ETSY shopper did not place an order, merely placed items in her basket which then showed up as orders.

[bradgoodell]

I re-read your post.  Items in cart can't convert to a "ghost" sale, because someone would have to input an address and payment method.  Then the payment method would have to hit processing and either be rejected or accepted.  

I constantly and consistently have items in my own cart on Etsy, and have never seen anything like you describe as a buyer.  I've never heard of it before as a seller.  Very odd.  

[HornseaJars]

I used the phrase ghost sale as I didn't know what else to call it. Yes, the buyer's info was in the order, but would her info not be stored on the system if she is a previous buyer with an account?  The issue is she did not make a purchase. It is very odd, especially as there is an ETSY order number which ETSY deny exists.

[bradgoodell]

This is my guess:

Buyer had multiple items from different shops in her cart.  She went to check-out from one shop, but missed the part where she needed to chose to check-out from one shop only.  The order amount from all the shops exceeding her credit limit.  Maybe the first one went through, but the others didn't.  They orders started to process, then were rejected.

There would be no order number for Etsy chat to recognize, because the order never fully completed.  

If you talked to Etsy Chat, many of those people are new, never ran an Etsy business, don't know how check-out works, and can only answer the most basic of questions.  

[FallenAngelBrass]

What is Expandly?

[bradgoodell]

I found this:

https://expandly.com

Grow your multichannel sales the easy way

The all-in-one solution for eCommerce retailers to connect, manage and automate listing, inventory, orders, shipping & accounting.

[HornseaJars]

Channel management software. It does everything I need it to and it is incredibly good value for money. I pay about £30 ppm and use it to manage five different sales channels.

[Adorabilities]

When I was briefly using Sellbrite (another channel management program) I noticed that there were a lot of orders that were in an incomplete folder that I had never seen anything about. I assume they were orders that never made it through the payment processing. I wasn't prompted to ship them, though -- I found them by accident. I would guess that your customer actually went through with placing the order, but it didn't process for whatever reason.

[HornseaJars]

She is adamant that she didn't place an order

[bradgoodell]

@HornseaJars  How many people own up to their mistakes, or are going to tell you "Yeah, my credit card was rejected." ?  

It may have been an Etsy glitch, no doubt that is possible.  But the obvious reason is more likely. 

[Adorabilities]

Anything is possible, but there are plenty of customers who didn't realize they were placing orders for everything in their cart.