Repeated Duplicate Pending Orders Linked to Same Buyer — Seller Told to Ignore, but Risk Remains
Over the last three weeks, I have seen an increased number of cases where the same buyer appears to place two orders for the same SKU within a short time window. In some cases both orders pass through Pending before becoming actionable. In other cases one order remains Pending with buyer details hidden, while the confirmed order page shows “See all 2 orders from this buyer,” suggesting the system has linked both orders to the same buyer.
I have contacted Seller Support about this issue on several occasions. I was told to ignore the Pending order unless it becomes actionable. I understand that advice for isolated Pending orders, but it does not address the repeated duplicate-order pattern. When both orders later clear, the seller has to choose between shipping a likely duplicate, cancelling one with possible metric consequences, or waiting for buyer confirmation while the dispatch clock continues.
My concern is not the existence of Pending orders by itself. My concern is the seller-side consequence when two linked orders for the same buyer/SKU appear within minutes of each other and both may later become actionable.
Could Amazon please confirm whether this is expected checkout/payment-verification behaviour, and what cancellation reason sellers should use if both linked orders clear but appear to be an unintentional duplicate?
Repeated Duplicate Pending Orders Linked to Same Buyer — Seller Told to Ignore, but Risk Remains
Over the last three weeks, I have seen an increased number of cases where the same buyer appears to place two orders for the same SKU within a short time window. In some cases both orders pass through Pending before becoming actionable. In other cases one order remains Pending with buyer details hidden, while the confirmed order page shows “See all 2 orders from this buyer,” suggesting the system has linked both orders to the same buyer.
I have contacted Seller Support about this issue on several occasions. I was told to ignore the Pending order unless it becomes actionable. I understand that advice for isolated Pending orders, but it does not address the repeated duplicate-order pattern. When both orders later clear, the seller has to choose between shipping a likely duplicate, cancelling one with possible metric consequences, or waiting for buyer confirmation while the dispatch clock continues.
My concern is not the existence of Pending orders by itself. My concern is the seller-side consequence when two linked orders for the same buyer/SKU appear within minutes of each other and both may later become actionable.
Could Amazon please confirm whether this is expected checkout/payment-verification behaviour, and what cancellation reason sellers should use if both linked orders clear but appear to be an unintentional duplicate?
8 replies
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hi jfmamj,
It is possible that this is a 'fail safe' applied by Amazon Systems, in case the Buyer has inadvertently placed the same order twice (when it would be easier to place an order for 2 items), the System might message the Buyer to ask them to check that they intended 2 identical orders...
Once the first order has cleared Pending, the second order might remain Pending until confirmation is received
Just a thought
All Best
Brian
PS I have read comments a long time previously that a Buyer, placing an order may not receive (what they view as) a timely response from Amazon and assume that the order has not 'taken' and reorders... this might have prompted the above 'fail safe' mechanism which is still in place
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
**Update after Seller Support chat — case 12584812492**
I have now discussed one of these duplicate-order cases with Seller Support in live chat.
In this case, the buyer placed two orders for the same ASIN within about 10 minutes. The first order was dispatched. The buyer then confirmed through Buyer-Seller Messaging that the second order was accidental and that they only wanted one item.
Seller Support confirmed the following:
* If the buyer does not cancel through the official buyer cancellation button, the seller-initiated cancellation still counts against the seller cancellation metric.
* Buyer-Seller Messaging evidence is not enough to make the cancellation buyer-initiated for metric purposes.
* There is no standard manual override path to prevent the metric impact.
* If the buyer does not act before the ship-by deadline, the seller has to decide between cancellation-rate impact and late-shipment risk based on current Account Health.
* Seller Support advised that if this later causes an Account Health issue, I should create a new case and reference case 12584812492, because the previous notes and buyer confirmation are documented there.
This is the part I would appreciate moderator clarification on.
The issue is not just whether a seller can cancel an order. The issue is that Amazon can hold buyer-message evidence confirming the duplicate order was accidental, but the cancellation metric system does not appear to recognise that evidence unless the buyer uses the official cancellation workflow.
Could a moderator please confirm whether there is any correct escalation route or cancellation reason for this specific situation?
Same buyer, same SKU, same quantity, orders placed minutes apart, buyer confirms one was accidental, but buyer does not use the official cancellation button before the ship-by deadline.
At the moment, the guidance appears to leave the seller choosing between two possible defects: cancellation-rate impact or late-shipment risk.
Seller_IljBdhWypMNhx
is this from a Business customer? We have seen something like this before on FBA.. the order was pending for weeks but same ASIN was purchased in smaller qty in following days/week.
ChatGPT take is that as business order require authorisation and the order was stuck in workflow. The buyer then placed a smaller order that might not have reached the authorisation limit and thus able to get the order through. The stock has actually been allocated to those pending orders and we have to ship more in very quickly. The orders expired after 1 month and by the way, the stock has not been returned to our inventory. Any attempt to get that reconcile with cases opened had not been successful. No doubt, they might surface 3 years later like what happened with stock turned up in Germany and France recently but we have stopped selling in those stores since Brixit
This only happened twice so far and this is the only explaination we can come up with.
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
Thank you for the replies. I want to clarify the pattern from my side, because I do not think all cases are necessarily caused by the same mechanism.
I have seen three related but slightly different situations.
The first was a Business buyer / FBA case. A Business buyer placed an order for an FBA SKU where I had only just sent the initial unit to the fulfilment centre the previous day. I contacted Seller Support and was told late dispatch would not affect my metric because it was FBA. When I later checked the transaction record, the payment was released 56 days after the order was placed. When I contacted Seller Support again, I was told they could not trace shipment history older than 90 days.
The second was also FBA. Three units of the same FBA SKU were reserved. I contacted Seller Support and was told there was no pending order, cancelled order, FC transfer, or removal order related to that SKU. Later, the three units reappeared in my FBA inventory.
The recent duplicate-order issue appears different. Most of the duplicate orders I have seen recently were from ordinary retail buyers, not Business buyers. Some were placed within one or two minutes of each other. Over the last few weeks, these pending duplicate orders seem to have become more frequent. Only one was from a Business buyer.
In one recent case, a buyer placed two orders for the same SKU.
One order cleared after around 30 minutes, while the second order remained pending. I noticed that the pending order appeared to be from the same buyer and for the same item, so I dispatched the cleared order as normal.
Two days later, the long-pending duplicate order also cleared.
I contacted the buyer to check whether they intended to place a second order. The buyer replied the confirming that the second order was accidental.
I asked the buyer to request cancellation from their side, but they did not reply. One day later, I cancelled the duplicate order myself.
The result was that the issue affected both my late dispatch metric and my cancellation metric, even though the delay and duplicate-order situation were created by the pending-order workflow rather than by normal seller handling.
So I am not claiming there is one single cause. It could be buyer double-click/retry behaviour, checkout rendering delay, payment verification, Business-buyer authorisation, or an order-state refresh issue.
The problem for sellers is that we cannot see which state applies.
From the seller side, we may see a pending order, reserved FBA stock, a duplicate same-buyer order, or a cleared order with the dispatch clock running. But we do not see the internal reason: payment verification, Business authorisation, buyer retry, system retry, stock reservation, or another internal workflow.
That is why “ignore pending orders” is not enough guidance in repeated cases.
It may be fine for an isolated pending order. But when the same buyer / same SKU / same quantity appears within minutes, or when FBA stock is reserved without a visible order trail, the seller still carries the operational consequence.
What I would like Amazon to clarify is:
1. Can duplicate same-buyer / same-SKU orders be caused by checkout retry, payment verification, or Business-buyer authorisation workflows?
2. If FBA units are reserved but Seller Support cannot see a pending order, cancelled order, FC transfer, or removal order, what internal state is holding those units?
3. If a buyer confirms through Buyer-Seller Messaging that a duplicate MFN order was accidental, but does not use the official cancellation button, is there any cancellation route that avoids seller metric impact?
4. How long should sellers retain evidence when transaction settlement, FBA shipment history, and order visibility may not remain traceable for the same length of time?
At the moment, the seller-facing system shows the consequence, but not enough of the order state to make a safe decision.
Seller_IljBdhWypMNhx
to be honest, if it is FBA, i usually leave it well alone.
1. you paid Amazon to deal with any logistic and customer service
2. We are discourage to contact buyers for any reasons unless they initate the contact
3. pending order is just that, for FBM, you just ignore it unless it affect your stock level (ie someone buy up all your sotck but not completed check out, then you might do something about it)
Seller_0XWc3TbYeT9US
Not sure on goods value on these orders, but it may be a factor.
Where we have experienced similar (buyer placing identical orders minutes apart) and it has been spotted, we have checked with the buyer and, to my recollection, it was because their one-time spend on the business card they were using was capped, so instead of ordering two units (as this was above the cap), they placed two orders for one unit to circumvent.
Just a thought.
