My first sale, but has payment actually been made after decline?

I’m deciding whether I should celebrate my first sale just now, or not.

The buyer’s payment showed a decline in the payment timeline (“Your card has insufficient funds”), but then immediately following it Shopify showed that funds will be added to my payout. Here’s the sequence:


A $96.75 NZD payment was processed using a Visa ending in **** via Shop Pay.
5:24 PM

Unable to process a payment for $96.75 NZD using a Visa ending in **** via Shop Pay.
5:24 PM

$93.84 NZD will be added to your Dec 2, 2021 payout.

5:24 PM

Payment Status shows Paid. There’s no evidence of this sale in Abandoned Checkouts.

My question is - has the sale gone through ok, or declined?

I need to know before sending the item off and don’t want to wait 4 days to check if the proceeds have gone into my bank.

Thanks for any advice.

1 Like

Hi @KAR2

Shopify has inbuilt Fraud Analysis which is very effective under orders. You’ll get a warning message if it falls under Fraud.
Shopify store owner face this issue and Shopify warn the store owner.

You can do best is to contact the customer and ask if they really ordered the item and ask them to provide any verification.

You can check support docs by Shopify
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/orders/fraud-analysis

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/fraud-prevention

Thanks, I know the customer has bought it because I personally offered a discount to their email address.

I had already checked the Fraud analysis in my search for the answer, and there was no warning, just the decline then payment authentication. I don’t want to embarrass the customer by asking if they had a decline due to insufficient funds.

What is not clear is whether it has been accepted as a legitimate purchase after the supposed decline.

You just need to check if card numbers are same or different. If card number are different then I think customer tried with first card and that was declined due to insufficient funds but the another card used was successfully made the payment.

You’ll surely got the payment in your account as you got your first order.

Looking further I see there were 2 payment attempts, but only one payment in the order timeline. Maybe the second attempt not shown was successful.

There is still no way to confirm this. Confusing.

Hi @KAR2

If the below order in your order section

$93.84 NZD will be added to your Dec 2, 2021 payout.

A $96.75 NZD payment was processed using a Visa ending in **** via Shop Pay.

Unable to process a payment for $96.75 NZD using a Visa ending in **** via Shop Pay.

Then, it’s fine to proceed the order as first try was declined and then it got successful and payout will be added to your dated payout.

2 Likes

Celebrate your first checkout conversion yes ?.

Celebrate your first confirmed fulfillment yes ?.

Celebrate your first customer review yes ?.

etc each milestone and lesson matters when starting.

However any celebration related to money itself should wait until after money is in your businesses bank account; aka until the checks have cleared, or the eggs have hatched.

1 Like

Wise words indeed!

Yes, it certainly looks like this has happened. I was a little uncertain because of earlier reports on this forum about declines which may have indicated a glitch with Shop Pay.

But the bottom line is that Shopify have confirmed a payout so that’s probably what I’ll accept.

Almost forgot, do NOT send an item if you cannot afford the loss when your uncertain of the payment process while also keeping in mind a possibly annoyed first customer; a hard balance.

If you do delay to wait on pay, look up your shipping rates in advance so you can consider shipping their order expedited.. if paying that extra makes sense for a first customer or for your logistics experience. If you do something like this for a customer let them know , something like “There was a processing delay but we went ahead and shipped overnight just for you” but in your words.

1 Like

Thanks ReverseWeb,

Yes, it certainly looks like this has happened. I was a little uncertain because of earlier reports on this forum about declines which may have indicated a glitch with Shop Pay.

But the bottom line is that Shopify have confirmed a payout so that’s probably what I’ll accept.

Hi @PaulNewton

Good points, though I don’t want to involve the customer in a process that should be transparent to me as a shop owner.

1 Like

A followup to my problem…

First, the payment was made and received a few minutes ago. So that’s good news.

But I realised I had misread the payment timeline and assumed it was the oldest message at top instead of the newest. So the order was completed successfully and my worries were needless.

A second order went through without a decline so I figure everything is working as it should.

Thanks to eevryone who took the time to reply!

1 Like

Good to hear, one of @Sheesh_b 's responses kinda alluded to that about the order of mess but we should have been very specific it’s in descending order newest to oldest.

If you have time I highly recommend submitting a ticket to shopify about your experience with those messages and how that display isn’t time intuitive and created a highly confusing and stressful time for you.

Goodluck out there.

1 Like