Abandoned Baskets.

[mikepayn]

How many abandoned baskets do you think is the norm?

We are quite a specialized site so we only get around 170 hits a day at this time of year and we are getting 5 or 6 abandoned baskets every day - that is not counting the baskets created by the "Bots" (viewing 35 pages in a minute and putting a dozen items in the basket) or the baskets with just one silly item in them.

I am getting panicky as we seem to be having a problem with our PayPal account (PayPal are our credit card processors too). See http://www.bluepark.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?2736-Address-check-failure (http://www.bluepark.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?2736-Address-check-failure). I am wondering if we are still having problems - though PayPal say not, and people are trying to place an order and can't so go elsewhere - we have had two this weekend who contacted us and I have had to take their payment by MOTO.

[anglianroofing]

Has anyone disputed any payments through your PayPal account? If they have, it could be that your account has been frozen. I doubt this is the case - but if it is, then you could be stuck until the dispute has been sorted. PayPal is very bad in that respect...

[Neil]

Read somewhere else that there were a few problems recently with paypal, infact my wife tried to pay for an ebay purchase on friday and paypal was down completely.

Just checked my figures as i have never looked before, one site is 0.1% over the month, the other is about 0.5% as a percentage of customers however i have noticed that when ever i send a newsletter out the number of dropped basket increases a lot on that particular day.

[Red Devil]

Abandoned baskets (orders in progress) have an "attempt (to collect)" counter against them. If this is zero then it was abandoned before even attempting to connect to PayPal. If it is greater than zero, if you click on it, there will be an error message or explanation.

[mikepayn]

Thanks for your answers.


Has anyone disputed any payments through your PayPal account? .... PayPal is very bad in that respect...

No, no disputes and we have had payments coming through - though orders are way down on last year.


Read somewhere else that there were a few problems recently with paypal, .......

Yes, I heard that too Neil, but we have had some payments through which is what makes it so confusing.


Abandoned baskets (orders in progress) have an "attempt (to collect)" counter against them. If this is zero then it was abandoned before even attempting to connect to PayPal. If it is greater than zero, if you click on it, there will be an error message or explanation.

In our Orders in Progress there has always been a zero against attempts (was beginning to wonder if it worked even!) even a zero against those this weekend who said they had tried on-line and it wouldn't go through. One said "I'm trying to place an order went through all the steps. When I get to completion-Visa verification-it goes through but takes me back to the sign in page-I can still see my order in the basket. Help!"

I am at a loss, just about to phone PayPal again! I think I might have to change credit card processors, I can't be doing with all this.:(

[anglianroofing]

Although I have yet to launch, I have SagePay set up and they seem very good. There are loads of security features thrown in, although it is £20 a month (deducted on the 16th of each month) unless you go over 1000 transactions a month, in which case you just pay 10p a transaction without the need for the £20 fee.

For a large business with high price orders, it is perfect, and saves a lot over PayPal fees which are just ridiculous!

Another advantage - one of which my business won't be able to live without - is the fact that your account doesn't close down every time someone starts to kick up a fuss (usually over a problem that is out of your own power). Whereas PayPal freeze your account (meaning no more trading online temporarily) SagePay keep you up and allow you to sort the problem in a more realistic manner.

This being said, I have set SagePay up and carried out a test and live transaction and it has all worked perfectly. As well as that, I had a lot of phone calls with their help team whilst I tried to set up, and they were amazing. All UK based, friendly and very helpful - something that cannot be said about PayPal!

[Neil]

I think most people here know all about sagepay, unfortunately you have yet to experience it's downside obviously.

[Ashley]

Re SagePay. It's 1000 transactions per quarter (not month) when you start to pay 10p pr transaction.

[jimmyservis]

Is SagePay really that much of a no? I'm looking for an integrated one from next month - who do you suggest?

Regarding the baskets. I get them almost everyday. Its pretty frustrating, but i think it is people just comparing across lots of sites to see who is cheapest including postage etc

I've notcied my two main competitors capture the customers information before allowing them to see the total checkout cost. I think its annoying seeing them add to the basket, but then never knowing who it is!

[Laura@FYP]

That does seem quite a high number of abandoned baskets. We get maybe 1 or 2 a day, if that, and have visitor numbers of 800-900 per day.

If you are having problems with Paypal though, I would recommend Sagepay also (although it is not without its faults, and we have all seen 3-4 events of downtime in the past 12 months, although I am hopeful they have got their butts back into gear again now!) Never had a problem with Paypal though, apart from the high fees.

[Neil]

Don't get me wrong, sagepay has served us well over the years, however the system does get a bit 'pushed' over the busy periods, when it may go down completely. Aside from a few payment delays we have got used the new back office and although i have looked at moving to other payment providers, i am sticking with sagepay, because its the devil i know!

[mikepayn]

Thanks for all your replies and advice. After two days of phonecalls to PayPal and being assured everything is OK late yesterday we had all our "Orders in Progress" orders completed and several two or three day old baskets completed. Curious! I am wondering how long this has been going on and how many orders we have lost.

Yesterday evening I started negotiations with SagePay, after a long chat with them - and I mentioned the downtimes - they assured me that everything is much more robust now! So we are going to go ahead and save ourselves a bit of money as well. An additional incentive is that it seems with SagePay you get your money every day whereas with PayPal you have to physically transfer it to your Bank Account and if you want it quickly, they take £5. Another thing with SagePay is that they also handle your PayPal payments (as I understand it) and at least 25% of our customers use PayPal, SagePay even insist on setting it all up for you as they get a better deal with PayPal.

So weighing it all up I think SagePay is for us and it will give me a chance to tidy up our Home Page & Payments Pages plus give me something to write about in our Blog, Facebook page and Newsletter - three chores I really struggle with !

[ThomasMurray]

We've been operating about 4 months now and we use Sagepay, and I honestly haven't got 1 bad thing to say about them.

I haven't experienced a down-time yet, thankfully, and hopefully they have ironed out the problems from last year.

[Potbelly]

Have been using sagepay for about 4 years, the poor service issues have certainly increased since they took it on from Protex.
Hated the new back end from day one, so we still use the old one.