Payments That Arrive Without an Order in the Shop

Money in the account, nothing in the shop

The payment account shows a payment from a customer this morning. The shop's order list has no order from her, or shows one marked unpaid and waiting.

Nobody ships anything, because the shop says there is nothing to ship. A few days later she writes to ask where her order is.

The money arrived. What failed was the message telling the shop that it had.

The trip back from the payment page

Many shops send buyers to a payment page run by the payment company. The buyer pays there and is then sent back to the shop's own receipt page.

Many carts mark an order paid only when that return happens: the browser arrives at the receipt page carrying the result, and the shop records it.

If the shopper closes the window after paying, loses the connection, or stops at the payment company's own receipt instead of returning, the shop never hears.

Some carts do not even create the order until the return. The payment then exists with nothing to match it at all.

Why shoppers do not come back

From the shopper's side, each of these is reasonable:

• The payment page shows its own receipt, with a link back to the shop that looks optional.
• A phone loses signal between paying and returning.
• The shopper closes the tab once the payment is confirmed.
• The return page is slow or shows an error, and they give up.
• A browser setting blocks the move back to the shop.

Paying was the shopper's job, and they did it. The rest is the shop's to sort out.

Direct notification

Most payment companies offer a second route: their server sends a message straight to the shop's server for every payment, whether or not the shopper ever returns.

It goes by different names, such as payment notification or callback, but works the same way. The shop marks the order paid when that message arrives.

The shop should also confirm each message with the payment company and compare the amount and currency with the order, so a forged message cannot mark an order paid.

Many carts support this already and need only the notification address entered in the payment account, or sent along with each payment.

Making sure the notification arrives

The notification address has to be reachable from the internet. A shop behind a password during development, or with a broken security certificate, may refuse the message.

Payment companies usually retry failed notifications for a while and record the attempts in the account. Those records show whether the shop is answering.

If one payment account serves two sites, such as an old shop and a new one, make sure each payment carries its own notification address.

After any move to a new server or a new certificate, make a small test payment and confirm the order is marked paid.

A worked example

A gourmet food shop sells cheeses, preserves and gift boxes from its store and online, with most online orders arriving in the weeks before the holidays.

Last December, several customers wrote to ask about gift boxes they had paid for. The payment account showed each payment; the shop showed nothing.

The cart created the order only when the shopper returned from the payment page, and the payment page showed its own receipt with a small link back.

Its developer switched on the payment company's notification, set the shop to create and mark orders paid on receiving it, and tested a payment in which the browser was closed straight away.

From then on, no order depended on the shopper's browser: the payment company told the shop directly.

The bookkeeper now compares the previous day's payments with orders each morning, and anything unmatched becomes a phone call to the customer before noon.

A daily check of payments against orders

Even with notification working, check each day. Export the day's payments from the payment account and the day's paid orders from the shop.

Match them by order number, amount and email address. Two lists that agree take a minute to compare, and a simple spreadsheet is enough; the habit matters more than the tool.

A payment without an order means a customer waiting for something nobody is preparing. A paid order without a payment means something is shipping that was never paid for.

When a gap turns up

Contact the customer the same day, confirm what they ordered, and create the order by hand. Hearing from you first is reassuring.

Watch for repeat payments. A shopper who saw no confirmation may have paid twice, and the second payment should be refunded promptly with a short explanation.

Then look for the cause in the notification records, so the same gap does not open again tomorrow. Note each gap and its cause; a pattern points to the fix.

Who should set it up

Notification touches the payment account, the cart's settings and the server, so it belongs with whoever built or maintains the shop, tested in the payment company's test mode before going live.

The daily check belongs with the person who handles the books or the orders, with a written note of what to do when the lists disagree.

The counter-case

Some shops take card details on a payment form that reports back to the shop's server directly, before the receipt page appears. Their orders are marked paid without any return trip.

A very small shop taking a handful of orders each week can also spot a mismatch by eye, provided someone looks.

But the daily comparison costs minutes and catches more than this one fault, so it is worth keeping even when notification works perfectly.

Closing the gap before the holidays

1. Pay for a test order and close the window at once.
2. See whether the shop recorded it as paid.
3. Turn on direct notification in the payment account.
4. Have the shop confirm each notification it receives.
5. Check the notification records after a week.
6. Compare payments with orders every morning.
7. Write down what to do when they disagree.

Step one tells you in five minutes whether the shop depends on the return trip. If the test order stays unpaid, every shopper who closes the window early leaves the same gap.

The same return trip also misleads Analytics, which then credits sales to the payment company; that problem is explained in sales credited to the payment page.

Frequently asked questions

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