I had a non paying buyer earlier in the week, e-mailed her letting her know the purchase hadn’t completed and the different options for completing it - if the item is one I have a stock of then I usually advise the buyer to just buy again from scratch, which she did, and I cancelled the original order. So, another example of someone who hadn’t changed her mind.
To be fair I don’t get many non payers across my 2 shops but of those I do get I would say around two-thirds go on to complete the purchase one way or another. I suppose those who come back and re-order from scratch are going to look as if they changed their mind on the original order as it is never completed but I know this is not the case.
I sent a Facebook conversaton to James today.
From a customer who ordered but didn’t manage to complete payment (and she had added a message to the order to say how pleased she was with what she had ordered).
I got the order email but not the payment. I left it for a while as I was going out and was pretty confident she wanted it but even within the hour she had contacted me via Facebook to say she had had a problem with her paypal password (think this is a common reason for failure) which of course meant she lost her payment path. She then went back to buy it again but of course couldn’t as it was reserved for her order.
A quick message back asking her to try the link in the Folksy email and all sorted. Out in the post to her tomorrow.
Some of you have been really unlucky. I have had 70 sales so far and only one of those sold but never paid emails and that was well over a year ago.
I do a ridiculous amount of shopping on line quite literally daily. There are some sites that I can guarantee I will have trouble checking out if I am using my phone. Some involve paypal some not. This problem it seems to me is an issue with mobile devices and not something any one site can fix. When I use my laptop it never cause a problem.
I do remember the first time I ordered from Folksy after I had opened my shop but still finding my way around. One of the things that confused the hell out of me was the postage. I never quite could get my head around what the extra for additional items meant. Was it multiples of that single item, anything in that shop, anything on Folksy, what if the second thing I ordered had a greater postage than the first…!! At the time having never used Etsy or Ebay I had never used a site where postage costs were added individually per item and I admit to experimenting by adding things to my basket to see what happened. Some of these non payments may be people ordering from multiple shops and not realising until checkout how much they have racked up in postage. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have no idea how Folksy works and that it is lots of individual sellers. If we are all honest postage when buying something is what we hate most.
Also as I buyer on other sites I will often ‘wander’ around a site adding things to my basket then having a look and deciding what I will actually buy. I obviously wouldn’t do that on here now but again I am sure others do and I would not like, as a buyer, being personally emailed and asked if I wanted help completing my payment!
I have ordered a few times recently on Folksy and I do think there are things that could be clearer, especially regarding postage for those unfamiliar with how the site works. I did encounter a problem with an early order using my phone which I can’t remember exactly what happened but I had no idea how to get back in and complete the order and had to email the seller,who also had no idea!!! It took quite a while of fiddling with various options in my account before accidentally finding out what to do. I suppose that example would be on the side of continuing to get the email of sold before paid but I think Foklsy are right. I don’t think someone’s details should be emailed to us who has not paid, people have the right to shop around and change their mind. If there really is a problem all you have to do is contact the seller or Folksy. It is what I would expect to do. I’d rather that than what could unintentionally sound like a pushey email asking me to pay!!!
I always get non payers in October because my shops are very busy for Halloween. It wasn’t as bad this year though. I think I only cancelled 3 orders. Last October I cancelled around 6 orders.
I expect the link with PayPal was probably broken. I did email one attempted buyer, to let her know the payment hadn’t gone through and to say I’d cancelled the order, but feel free to buy it again and gave her a link to the item.
I didn’t hear from her again. I usually just cancel them because I just don’t have time as I’m so busy in the Etsy shop with about 75 orders in October.
Just editing to add, I’m not complaining, I’ve had a good month in Folksy, with sales increasing greatly in the last few months x
While I appreciate everything you have said I think one also needs to take into account other factors such as age, digital familiarity. You say you are a frequent on line shopper. I have customers who are very wary of buying online and do not have your experience to handle things when things go a little pearshaped.
i hope i come across as helpful rather than pushy or desperate on the odd occasion i have to email customers, but either way ( ) i’d still prefer the option.
this week i had a customer who’d fluffed her order - getting the no. of items she wanted wrong, so she went through checkout twice & incurred double postage. when i contacted her, she was waiting for me to contact her. i was able to sort it out simply & quickly with a paypal invoice.
on another occasion, i was chatting to someone on facebook AS they placed their order. when i said payment hadn’t come through yet, she hadn’t realised she was to pay on folksy (i think she thought i would invoice her after the order was placed or something?) so like @JOYSofGLASS says, not everyone is as familiar with how things work as we are.
and i think, as a customer, if it all went wrong i’d prefer the seller to contact me, rather than have to chase things up myself. with a unique, handmade item, it’s not like you can always just try again at another shop.
I do think that sometimes customers appreciate the personal contact from individual sellers on Folksy rather than an automated response. With my most recent non-paying-and-then-re-ordering buyer, when she re-ordered her purchase was larger than it originally had been and I’d like to think this was because I, an actual person, contacted her to help (of course in reality it was probably because in the meantime she’d remembered extra people she needed gifts for, but still…)
I was horrified to hear that any sellers would ever send out less-than-polite messages. Perhaps if Folksy were to ‘officially’ state that accidental non payment can be an issue for whatever reason other than buyer’s remorse* and give official guidance on what to do, then inexperienced sellers would know what to expect and might not take it so personally.
*reasons for non completion other than buyer’s remorse from my own buying experience range from wobbly internet connections to children doing something disastrous in the other room…
I think they probably back track to double check something and the link gets broken. I try to list more than one of the popular items which I can predict this happening to, so the buyer can have a chance to try again. This happened with a buyer last week, she persevered and got to checkout on her second attempt.
It’s definitely not any fault of the buyer and whatever the reason for non payment they are not obliged to pay. I’m the same when I’m shopping on the Internet, always back tracking and double checking. I’m just reading through the responses and I can’t find any sellers who say they write rude or impolite emails.
I’ve only ever once had to cancel an unpaid sale because the buyer didn’t reply to my email offering to help. Most buyers are extremely grateful that I have bothered to get in touch, and have gone on to complete their purchases. I always state in my email that if they have just had a change of heart, that’s fine, it’s not a problem and I can cancel the order - I hope no-one ever thinks I’m being ‘pushy’ or pestering them for payment. I think the tone and wording of the emails is incredibly important, and if you can get it right, it doesn’t put buyers off at all.
@talulahblue I don’t suppose they would! It was something James said, one of the reasons for abolishing the pre-payment ‘you’ve sold something’ e-mail, not sure if it was this thread or the other.
I agree that the tone of any message is absolutely crucial and the inclusion of ‘if you’ve changed your mind it’s not a problem’ or words to that effect is very important.
Oh I see, thanks Helen.
On the occasions where I’ve emailed non paying buyers I’ve apologised if they’ve experienced difficulty with the site and said that I would cancel the order and that the item was still available for them to purchase if they wish and given them a link to try again.
I was informed a while ago that Folksy HQ are working with PayPal to strengthen the link at checkout. This is what we really need. There is one particular item affected in my shop. It’s something young women, possibly busy students, would buy to wear to a party. They rarely get back to my emails, I think because they want to buy something quickly for the weekend and don’t have the time or patience for emailing back and forth and they just move on, it’s the nature of many of my customers. Customers who are more mature in age and wanting an item for their wedding are more likely to persevere to buy a special hat.
) i’d still prefer the option.
and I’d like to think this was because I, an actual person, contacted her to help (of course in reality it was probably because in the meantime she’d remembered extra people she needed gifts for, but still…)