Waiting

[Lisa-Anne Sanderson]

Hello,

Some of my articles sold recently. When I look at the 'My Sales' section these articles are listed
as 'waiting'. Does this mean that C-C hasn't received the money yet?

[Celeste Stewart]

It's weird, today has been a "waiting" day. I had two batches stuck for a while in "waiting." One was due to a customer changing his mind and wanting to use a credit card instead of PayPal. A quick note to support released the articles and he was able to complete the purchase. The other (from a regular client) I noticed was stuck in waiting for a while then it went through a few hours later before I had a chance to check with support. Saw a couple forum posts like yours today, too which makes me wonder if the credit card processing system is overloaded or ???? Just odd that so many orders are in this mode today. . .

[Lysis]

I've had articles wait for a week before it went through. So, give it some time. I had one wait a week and then it was reversed. I know I've read that this happens to others too.

[jrichards]

Hey Lisa,

Just wanted to clarify that the waiting status means that a customer has put the article in the shopping cart and then headed off to Paypal to make their payment. When the customer leaves Constant-Content for paypal we mark the articles as waiting.

So usually the articles only remain 'waiting' for a matter of minutes. In some cases the customer decides they no longer want to make the purchase, or that they'd like to make the purchase later. In those cases the article may remain in waiting until the customer comes back and finishes making the payment. Or after approximately a week of waiting we release the articles back into the general pool of articles.

I hope that clarifies things a little.
-jrichards
Support
Constant-Content

[4rumid]

Thanks for the clarification on "waiting."

Question: doesn't a week seem like a long time to keep an item in the shopping cart? Especially if an article is timely (like an article about Christmas decorations would be now), being kept hidden by the potential buyer for that long, only to be put back in the pool, seems unfair to the author or to other buyers looking for articles on the topic. Could that time period be shortened to, say, 3 days?

[nichewriter]

Perhaps CC can implement a "reminder" email to buyers who have articles waiting in their shopping cart? Say, after 3 days of putting articles in their cart, they receive an automatic email reminding them about the articles so they can complete the payment? The email can also let buyers know that if they don't take any action after 24 hours (for example), their shopping cart will be emptied and the articles will be released so other buyers can have the opportunity to purchase them.

[Constant]

Ok guys! Good thoughts. Its been something that we have been figuring out how to address this issue. We are going to do something (like the reminder email ** thanks Nichwriter) in the near future to make this 'waiting' status a more regulated setting. Always love the verve and passion that our community attacks any and all problems on the site.

David

[nichewriter]

This is great news, David!

I have one article that's been in the waiting status for a week now I think -- I'm not sure if that's because the payment hasn't gone through for the buyer (if he paid by eCheck) or he just abandoned his cart. I don't mind waiting a week for payment to clear, but if the article is just sitting there in the customer's cart doing nothing, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have the article be removed from his cart after a few days (e.g., 3 days) -- kind of like how it is for articles submitted for private requests.

Thanks to all you CC guys for being so responsive!

~Sherry

[Lysis]

I read once that there are two obstacles for an online site to get through. 1) coaxing the reader to start the purchase process 2) getting him to finally hit the submit button with credit card information filled out for finalization of the purchase.

I can't remember where I read it, but I read that a large amount of sales lost online are from the reader stopping at the credit card information section.

An email sounds like a nice little friendly reminder. It's a free and non-spammy way to improve sales, methinks.

[Celeste Stewart]

Maybe a way to let us know that payment is being processed as there's a difference between an abandoned order and one where the check is in the mail so to speak. If we know that an ePayment has been made, the wait is easier than wondering if the article will remain in limbo forever and if we should take some sort of action to free it up.

[nichewriter]

Hmm, under status, an article that's in a buyer's cart but not paid for yet could say "In cart" and an article that's already been purchased by the buyer but payment hasn't completed/cleared yet could say, "Waiting for payment to clear" or something to that effect - that will give authors an idea if an article in "My Content" is just sitting in a cart or if we can start to bust out the happy dance shoes