Pending sales
I have a "sale" which has been pending for 5 days. I will be putting my account into holiday mode in a few days time. What happens if the sale is still pending and then the buyer then decides to correct whatever problem he has and actually wants the book while I am on holiday?
As usual Amazon's seller university is of no help
Pending sales
I have a "sale" which has been pending for 5 days. I will be putting my account into holiday mode in a few days time. What happens if the sale is still pending and then the buyer then decides to correct whatever problem he has and actually wants the book while I am on holiday?
As usual Amazon's seller university is of no help
23 replies
Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM
This is something every seller has suffered and the answer is simple. The pending order will convert and you will be expected to ship it.
The choices are:
1) prepare the package and either take it with you or ask a friend to despatch it for you
2) cancel the order. You could message the customer explaining the issue and ask them to cancel so that your metrics don't take a hit. They might cancel or they might not. You may have to cancel the order yourself.
3) despatch the order on your return. I'm not sure which is worse, a late despatch or a cancelled order. Probably the cancellation as that has a lower metric target.
Good luck.
Ana_Amazon
Hello @Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21,
My name is Ana, from the community manager team. I understand your concern about having a pending order while you're planning to go on holiday mode.
When an order is in "pending" status, it typically means the buyer's payment has not yet been fully processed. Pending orders can remain in this state for up to 21 days before they are automatically cancelled by Amazon if the payment is not completed. It's important to note that activating holiday mode (vacation settings) will make your listings inactive and prevent new orders from coming in, but it does not cancel or affect orders that are already in your pipeline, including pending ones. For further details please check the Manage Holiday Settings help page.
If the buyer's payment clears while you are on holiday, the order will move to "unshipped" status and you will be expected to dispatch it within your stated handling time. To prepare for this, you may want to consider the following options: prepare the package before you leave and arrange for someone to post it on your behalf (as suggested by @Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM) , or extend your handling time in your shipping settings before activating holiday mode to give yourself additional buffer days.
If neither option is feasible and the order converts while you are away, you could contact the buyer via Buyer-Seller Messaging to explain the situation. Please be aware that cancelling an order on your end does impact your cancellation rate metric, and late dispatches affect your late shipment rate, both of which are monitored under Account Health.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Ana
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
Worth noting that if the pending order is more than 7 days old when it turns into an actual order then cancelling it does not impact your metrics. The metric date is based on the date the order was placed and not the date it became an actual order
I had one last year on holiday that had been pending for 10 days when it converted to an actual order and cancelling it had no impact on my metrics at all.
Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21
I have just returned from holiday.
As it happened the "pending" disappeared the day before I went away.
I find the Amazon @Ana_Amazon suggestion's are completely amazing and totaly unacceptable . I go on holiday to have a holiday and not to take work with me.
How do I "prepare the package" - amazon do not let us have the details of pending buyers. . Perhaps i should pack a printer in my suitcase to print out an address label while I am away. I'm not quite certain what a friend can do unless I give him complete access to my account..
Why does it take 21 days to process a buyer's payment.
Under what circumstances is it fair that a seller might be punished because a buyers's creditcard has expired.?
Why can amazon not make it possible for sellers to be able to message pending buyers?
Yet another disgraceful example of Amazon having absolutely no thought of the problems they are causing hard working sellers
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
Buyers should me made to pay on purchase like everywhere else
Seller_SooKfqYdUflLd
I have 17 pending at the moment, they should have to pay straight away like other platforms. Normally they go 5 days and drop-off pending when you could have sold to someone else in that time !
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hi All,
I am a Bookseller and someone has been buying large quantities of second-hand books for some months now...
More recently this has been done through consolidating agents who then arrange bulk shipment to a destination (?USA?)
I think that these agents use a system of invalid credit cards to put a book into suspense so they can double-check with the final buyer that the book is still wanted (and perhaps re-negotiate the price).
If an agreement is reached, the order is validated, and the 'middle-man' makes their profit. If not the pending item fails...
I currently have 3 books in pending (2 days+) and these are all from a 'Business Customer' (no details, of course, while pending) and I suspect they are all from the same potential Buyer, with order numbers all starting 026 (this may not be relevant).
I note that when you have pending orders outstanding there is a tendency for normal orders to dry up...
As for pending orders when you go away - you're stu**ed - I started a post here recently (Holiday Order Cancellation) when I was in the same situation as @Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21 and was lucky that the order disappeared while I was away
Leaving the package with a friend you can contact just in case is probably the best option, but you'll have to check-in every other day and can't use Buy Shipping
Best wishes
Brian
