So I am a customer and I bought many items with stores powered by shopify backend.
Recently I bought items and upon finishing my payment I found out that I was charged an extra 25 dollar worth.
What happened? Went and looked at my receipt and found that the merchant changed the price of an item that was 7 dollar to 12 and I bought 4 of them as well as another few other items getting bumped up a dollar. I received no warning no nothing as I check out and pay.
Now I have to contact the shop and all that. As well as becoming angry and frustrated.
I post this with the goal of asking for the feature which for the duration of the countdown (I don’t know if it is set by merchant but for me it was 30 minutes for this store) while you’re in checkout your cart’s prices should be frozen as you adjust the amount of items in cart to prevent mishaps that now requires me to contact the store and all that. Better consumer protection and all that.
I was suggested to post in this section by your support chat. So hopefully I get a favourable response.
Thank you.
Interesting, but I highly doubt that’s even feasible. Many stores have hundreds of people adding to cart or checking out at any one point. They’d never be able to change their prices. Plus, some merchants do live testing by placing orders of intentionally lowered prices to make sure it’s functioning, then change it back after they’re done. Adding to cart doesn’t “lock in” the price. But once an order is made, you are personally authorizing that purchase no matter how big. And after that, then it’s final, they can’t change the price of the item ordered.
Just think of Walmart. A customer picks up soda for $3 and puts it in his cart. Then an associate doing price changes comes and changes the price to $4. The customer gets to the checkout and sees $4. Sure, he rightfully gets mad. But that’s how it works out sometimes. Companies can’t afford to do that when there aren’t customers actively shopping.
granted there is no warning signs anywhere during my experiences.
also I did not grab it and left it in cart for a long time. The above shopping experience took place within 15 minutes.
I simply grabbed what I desired, went to cart and clicked checkout. upon finishing paying and getting the receipt I realized I paid more than what I saw was advertised. very unlucky.
now it is a large order worth hundreds of dollars. with tax involved there is no way to easily notice this happening. also there was a 30 minute countdown happening so you’re stressed and want to finish the order asap.
and you just go “oh now I gotta email the store via their contact and hopefully resolve this.” waste of time and makes people angry.
Now also yes I understand hundreds of people are shopping and checking out at any point. which makes this harder to do, valid point.
the live testing argument is weird cause I don’t see the point of lowering the price on doing that, if it was me I would just do it on some 25 cent items or something akin to that. you may need to further explain.
for this case in the Walmart example, it is instead you picks up a stool for 28 bucks cause you think it is good for its price. you pick up a bunch of other stuff very quickly cause you’re on a timer of 30 mins or other customer will take stuff from your cart and it’s theirs and on checkout your whole cart gets scanned at once. you got charged 250 bucks for a month of grocery. you go home and you’re like ok let me check the receipt. and then you found out that the stool is for 48 bucks now. now you don’t want it anymore you have to go to walmart tomorrow and return it.
Now the problem with this is that
- again there are no warnings. there is no shop associate telling you hey this got changed to another price, you simply have to just hope that it is the same.
- you are shopping online, if you don’t have your credit card saved you’re inputting your address and other things your attention is elsewhere.
- taxes exist, you expect the price to not be higher.
- on a side note if you’re unlucky you’re punished for arranging your cart.
- unlike in real life, returning an item is double the choir and time waste.
- it is super wack that if you do an order and within minutes the price changed, with internet shopping now you’re going “I should’ve gone with that other store instead their price is now lower.”
I am asking to freeze the price on something for 10-15 minutes (again I would like 30 because that’s how it is currently setup with the countdown I don’t know if the merchant sets it or shopify but whichever is fine) or so after you added it to cart while you’re shopping so that you can shop and not have to worry about this. and merchants can change the price while I do so but within that 10-15 minutes my cart shouldn’t change but newly added items will. after 10-15 minutes it is fair game for my cart to update and have price changes.
atleast you’re lucky this is closer to a market and not a restaurant. imagine ordering food and charged 20 more dollar for your meal after eating it.
Now I welcome alternative solutions that solves this problem. Willing to discuss more. If I own a shop I do not want the trouble of dealing with this either where I change the price on something and then immediately got and order and then a ticket telling me I got to charge a portion of it back.
Again in a perfect world I would make it like this.
- moment cart got an item added in, 30 min countdown. every 30 min cart refresh. this 30 mins is consistent and extends to checkout and checkout finish. (we already have this countdown implemented for holding an item from other shoppers I believe)
- if an item changes pricing via merchant, if the price is lowered change the price in cart if not all item in cart remains the same price until 30 min cart refresh
- notification on item price change in cart page if the contents of cart changes. (“hey the merchant changed the price on this item but we’ll hold it for you for 29:59 mins. any additional new item will have the changed price”)
- if you want to add another of the same item in cart but the price is changed, you’re notified of the price change and a new item is added to the cart with the new price (so an item worth 5 bucks changing to 7, on cart page you have it at 5 still you click + you get a notification that price changed by merchant and now you have a 5 dollar item and 7 dollar item in your cart)
- merchants can change the price at any time. however if it is in cart already and the price becomes higher the price stays until cart refresh, anyone pressing add to cart will now have the updated pricing.
If you need to have the merchant side to implement something that is fine. But I need the ability to do so. I would very much have this mandatory as it protects the consumer and saves shops the trouble.
Real fix is simple: cart should store a price snapshot per line item at add-to-cart time with an expiry timestamp (10–30 mins). Checkout uses that locked snapshot until timer expires, then cart re-prices automatically before payment. New items added after merchant price changes use latest price only. If price drops, auto-apply lower price. If price increases after lock expires, show a mandatory “price updated” notice before checkout. This is how you solve customer trust + merchant flexibility together. Technically it’s just temporary line-item price versioning, not permanent price locking.
We need to talk about this countdown timer… I’m not entirely sure I know what you’re talking about, but if it’s a storefront countdown… Sorry to say but it’s probably fake. Unless it’s an Outlet Store or a big name, or it was an ongoing sale timer that you absolutely trust, it’s not real… Most stores use fake countdowns. This is like having fake reviews (you’ll see some people advocating for review badges and such when there aren’t any sales!). It’s Shameful. Absolutely lying to the customer. So just letting you know.