What are the Abandoned, Errors and Live folders?

The Abandoned folder contains expired shopping carts. In other words, your customer added items to their cart but never completed the ordering process. Shopping carts are considered abandoned after 36 hours of inactivity.

The Errors folder contains order attempts, meaning, a customer tried to submit an order but your payment gateway (e.g., PayPal, Authorize.Net, etc.) did not approve the payment or the shopping cart could not finalize the order. In most cases, your customer will see an error message and resubmit a successful order.

The Live folder contains shopping carts that are active. This means your customer added items to their cart and may complete the ordering process at any time. The Last Activity column shows the last time they performed any action within the pages of the shopping cart.

Is it normal to have abandoned shopping carts?

Yes and depending on the type of products you sell and your shipping charges, abandonment rates can be high. Consumers add items to online shopping carts rather haphazardly. They are aware they are under no obligation to complete the ordering process and are often visiting several sites to compare shipping rates, delivery options, and total fees. Some online shoppers also intend to finish their order later but forget or change their mind.

How should I manage orders in the Errors folder?

Orders that were submitted to your payment processor but did not complete successfully are displayed under Orders - Shopping Carts - Errors. Errors can occur for many reasons:

• Your customer's credit card was declined.
• A general internet problem interrupted communication between your payment processor and the shopping cart.
• Your payment processor was experiencing temporary problems.
• There are problems with the account your payment processor provided you with.
• The payment processor settings you provided under Settings - Payment Gateway are incorrect.

To determine the cause of an error:

1. Click on the order's Order Number.
2. Scroll down to Payment Information.
3. Review the Processor fields.

Errors are generally managed in 1 of 3 ways:

1. If it's a "declined" or "address" related error, your customer may take steps to correct the issue (e.g., try a different credit card) and resubmit their order.

2. If the shopping cart did not complete its end-of-order operations (e.g., create new order, send out email notices) but your payment processor successfully processed payment for this order, follow the steps below:

   1. Select Approved in the Processor Response box.
   2. Update as many of the other Processor fields as possible.
   3. Click the Save button.

3. This will cause the shopping cart's end-of-order operations to complete as normal.

4. If your payment processor did not process payment for this order, you can contact your customer and gain permission to resubmit it. You can then click the "Resubmit To Payment Processor" button. This action will resubmit the order through your payment processor. The shopping cart will also perform all end-of-order operations as normal.