The order process
Permissions for Shipping Settings
When a buyer adds your product to their shopping cart and checks out, an order is placed. At this time, you can‘t add additional products to the order anymore. If the buyer requests to do so, you can instruct them to place a separate order for the product. After a buyer places an order, AlphaDiscounters processes their order following these steps:
- AlphaDiscounters places the order in Pending status. The quantity available for the listing is subtracted from your quantity in Manage Inventory. If there was a quantity of one at the time the order was placed, the listing will be removed from the AlphaDiscounters offer page and appear in Manage Inventory with a quantity of zero while the order is being processed.
Note: Pending orders will not appear in either the Orders report or the Unshipped Orders report and will be grayed out (non-actionable) in Manage Orders. AlphaDiscounters holds all orders for 30 minutes, which gives buyers an opportunity to cancel orders. Buyer-canceled orders will appear in Manage Orders as canceled, and will be grayed out.
- AlphaDiscounters verifies the order. AlphaDiscounters attempts to validate the buyer’s payment method and order details. At this stage, you will see one of three different status types in Manage Orders:
- Unshipped
- Payment verification is successful. See step 3.
- Pending
- Payment verification is initially unsuccessful or extended. In some cases, our payment and order detail verification processes may extend order processing times, potentially for as long as 14 days. Pending orders should not be shipped, even if the buyer contacts you directly. If a buyer contacts you while an order is in Pending status, refer them to AlphaDiscounters Customer Service for more information.
- Canceled
- An order gets canceled by AlphaDiscounters if payment authorization does not succeed or in cases of fraud. AlphaDiscounters will not notify you when an order is canceled, other than recording the order as canceled in Manage Orders. No further action is necessary. If a buyer contacts you about a canceled order and you still have available inventory, you can invite them to place a new order on AlphaDiscounters.
- When payment is verified on an order, AlphaDiscounters does the following:
- Changes the status to Unshipped
- Sends an order confirmation to the buyer with the estimated delivery date
- Sends an order notification to you
Note: Do not rely solely on email notifications for order confirmation. Check Manage Orders or the Orders reports for unshipped orders at least once a day.
If an order is delayed because of AlphaDiscounters processes, we will provide the buyer with a new delivery date based on the date the order is released from Pending status.
- You process the order. Once an order is in Unshipped status, you must either fulfill or cancel the order. Keep in mind that buyers can leave feedback on seller-canceled orders. AlphaDiscounters expects sellers to maintain accurate inventory levels. Failure to adjust your inventory in a timely manner can lead to excessive pre-fulfillment order cancellations.
- Get the delivery address in one of these locations:
- The Order Details page
- The Orders report
- The Unshipped Orders report
Note: To protect confidential buyer information, AlphaDiscounters does not include the buyer’s delivery address in the Sold, Ship Now email sent to you.
- Ship the order to the buyer using the delivery address and the requested shipping method. You may only redirect an order to an address other than the one provided in step 4(a) if the buyer or AlphaDiscounters Customer Services has contacted you through the AlphaDiscounters messaging system and requested the change.
In case the buyer asks to ship an order to a different address, the way you handle the situation depends on whether you have shipped the order. If you have not yet shipped the order, cancel the order. The buyer can then return to AlphaDiscounters to place a new order using the correct address. If you have already shipped the order to the address provided with the order, consider the following solutions:
- Contact the shipping provider to see if you can retrieve the package.
- Attempt to contact the current resident at the shipping address where you sent the package to or ask the buyer to do so. The current resident may be willing to refuse delivery or forward the package to the buyer.
- If the item is not returned to you or forwarded to the buyer, then the decision to issue a refund is up to you. You have the option of providing a partial refund minus your shipping costs.
For future orders, consider using package tracking or purchasing insurance from your shipping carrier if you are concerned about absorbing the cost of a lost shipment.
Note: Only ship orders that you can verify as Unshipped in Manage Orders or through the reports. You cannot wait until the money is in your checking account to ship the order. The settlement period for the payment received from an order will begin after you confirm shipment of the order and the buyer is charged.
- Confirm shipment using one of the following methods:
- From Manage Orders, click Confirm Shipment and complete the required information.
- Upload a Shipping Confirmation file for multiple orders (only available to sellers with Professional selling plans).
Note: You must confirm shipment of the order with AlphaDiscounters within 7 days of the ship date. Otherwise, AlphaDiscounters will automatically cancel the order and you will not be paid even if you shipped the order. One week before the 7-day cutoff, you will see a warning in Manage Orders (“Confirm as shipped by [date] to avoid cancellation”), and you will receive a notification by email.
To learn how to handle the situations when buyers want to return or cancel an order, refer to Manage seller-fulfilled returns or Order cancellations.
Use Manage Orders to print a packing slip for each individual order.
To print a packing slip for an order:
- Click Orders>Manage Orders.
- In your list of orders, find the order, and then click the Print packing slip button. A print dialog box and your packing slip will appear.
- In the print dialog box, click OK to print the packing slip.
- Put the packing slip in the box with the items you are sending, then seal the box.
You can reprint a packing slip for an order using these steps at any time.
Tip: To print multiple packing slips at the same time, select the check box in the upper-left corner of the list, choose Print packing slip for selected orders from the drop-down menu, and then click Go.
When can a buyer cancel an order?
For the first 30 minutes after the order is placed, buyers can cancel their own order using the Cancel Items button located in Your Account > Your Orders on AlphaDiscounters.
After 30 minutes, the buyer can no longer cancel the order directly, they can only submit a cancellation request for the seller to review. When the buyer requests a cancellation, you will receive an email notification and will see cancellation banners on the Manage orders page and Order details page.
Both cancellations and returns are a normal part of the sales operations.
What should I when a buyer wants to cancel an order?
Depending on the stage for processing the order, the following options may help you to determine next steps:
- If you haven’t shipped or confirmed shipment for this order, you can cancel it in Manage Orders, or use an Order Cancellation feed to cancel orders by uploading a file or through an API. To cancel an order from the Manage Orders page, follow the steps mentioned under Official cancellation process that will not count against your cancellation rate.
- If you already shipped, but haven’t confirmed shipment, you should confirm shipment and then contact the buyer via the Buyer-Seller Messaging service and advise them to either refuse the shipment or initiate a return.
- If you haven’t shipped, but you already confirmed shipment, you can no longer cancel the order. You should begin a refund process and not ship the product.
Note:
- When you cancel an order, AlphaDiscounters automatically updates the order status in the buyer’s AlphaDiscounters account and sends an email notification to the buyer.
- Messages about cancellation are considered a critical message, and will be delivered to a buyer even if they have opted out of non-critical messages.
- If the reason you need to cancel an order is not due to a Buyer-requested cancellation, you should cancel this order instead of requesting the buyer to cancel it.
- Canceling orders when the buyer unofficially requests cancellation through Buyer-Seller Messaging will impact your Cancellation Rate metrics. Such messages are labeled as “Inquiry from AlphaDiscounters customer.”
- The buyer is not charged for an order until you confirm shipment.
Official cancellation process that will not count against your Cancellation Rate metrics
The official process by which a buyer can request an order cancellation is by finding the order they want to cancel in their AlphaDiscounters account > Your Account > Your Orders > Request Cancellation.
- If the buyer requests a cancellation after 30 minutes of placing their order, you will receive an email notification and will be able to view the cancellation request on the Manage Orders page, right above the order information, with a banner stating “The buyer has requested that this order be canceled. Canceling this order will not affect your Cancellation Rate metric”
- After you cancel the order, the buyer will receive an email confirming that the order has been canceled.
Note: Selecting the reason for cancellation as Buyer Canceled for an order cancellation that was not initiated by a buyer will count against your Cancellation Rate metrics.
To process an order cancellation request by a buyer, follow these steps:
- From the Orders drop-down on Seller Central, select Manage Orders. On the “Unshipped” tab you can click “Show filters” to open the filtering pane and then under the section of “Pending Action” you can check the box called “Buyer Requested Cancel” to filter orders that have a Buyer Requested Cancellation.
- The orders which have a buyer-initiated cancellation will show up with a banner stating “The buyer has requested that this order be canceled. Canceling this order will not affect your Cancellation Rate metric.”.
- Click Cancel order under the Actions column.
Note: The Cancel order button is available only for Unshipped orders.
- Click Submit.
Note: Since we know there is a buyer requested cancellation, you do not have to select the reason anymore as we store this information and the reason is not editable.
- After you cancel the order, buyer will receive an email confirming that the order has been canceled.
Note: If you cannot fulfill the order due to scenarios such as no / low inventory, you forgot to turn on vacation settings and received an order when you were on a holiday, pricing errors, listing errors, technical issues at your end; do not contact the buyer to cancel such orders. Select appropriate reasons from the drop-down menu and cancel such orders. Canceling these orders will impact your cancellation rate.
Unofficial buyer-initiated cancellation process that will count against your metrics
A buyer requesting a cancellation solely via the Buyer-Seller Messaging tool without following the official cancellation process is considered as an unofficial manner for buyers to cancel orders. Such messages are labeled as “Inquiry from AlphaDiscounters customer”. Canceling these orders will impact your cancellation rate metric.
To avoid canceling an order in a manner that impacts your metrics, you can respond to the buyer’s message and request the buyer to submit a cancellation using the official process above.
Use the following instructions in your response: “You can find the order in your AlphaDiscounters account by clicking Your Account > Your Orders > Request Cancellation.”
If the buyer is unresponsive, you can proceed with fulfilling the order to prevent impacting your account health.
Partial cancellation
Occasionally, you may need to cancel part of an order with multiple items and refund the items that are canceled. You can issue full and partial refunds for each item in an order by using either the Refund Orders tool.
Automatic cancellation
AlphaDiscounters will automatically cancel orders if seven days have passed since the expected shipping availability date and you have not yet shipped and confirmed the shipment.
What kind of cancellations negatively impact your Cancellation Rate metric?
| Cancellation initiated by | Cancellation scenario | Negatively impact Cancellation Rate? |
| Buyer
|
1. I am canceling because the buyer submitted an official cancellation request | No |
| 2. I am canceling because the customer asked me to through the Buyer-Seller Messaging tool (unofficial cancellation processes; such messages are labeled as “Inquiry from AlphaDiscounters customer”) | Yes
|
|
| Seller | 1. I am canceling because my item went out of stock / pricing or listing error / received an order because I forgot to turn on vacation settings when I was on holiday | Yes
|
| 2. I am canceling because the address was undeliverable | Yes | |
| 3. I am canceling because the buyer was unresponsive | Yes | |
| AlphaDiscounters | 1. The order was automatically canceled by AlphaDiscounters because the seller did not confirm shipment within seven days of ship-by-date | Yes
|
| 2. The order was automatically canceled by AlphaDiscounters because we detected the buyer to be fraudulent | Yes
|
|
| 3. Payment verification failed so the order was canceled by AlphaDiscounters | No |
Permissions for Shipping Settings
The Shipping Settings page is available on the Settings drop-down menu only to those account users who have permissions to modify the account settings. If you do not have permissions, only the primary account holder for your account (not AlphaDiscounters) can grant them to you. The primary account holder is the person who initially registered with AlphaDiscounters.
Primary account holders can grant permission for users from the User Permissions page. Go to the Settings drop-down menu and select User Permissions. On the User Permissions page, you can add a user or select an existing user and click Edit to modify their permissions. Scroll down to the Settings section and locate Shipping Settings.
There are three levels of Shipping Settings permissions:
| None | These users have no access to Shipping Settings. |
| View | These users can only view Shipping Settings. |
| View and Edit | These users can create and modify Shipping Settings. |
CAUTION: Primary account holders should be careful not to grant View & Edit permissions to users that are unauthorized to create or modify shipping terms.
What should I do when a buyer wants to cancel an order and what is the official cancellation process?
To learn more about the buyer-initiated cancellations and the official order cancellation process, go to Order cancellation.
Where can I find orders where the buyer officially requested cancellation?
You can see officially requested buyer-initiated cancellations on:
- Email notifications
- Manage orders page on Seller Central:
- On the Unshipped tab, click Show filters to open the filtering pane.
- In Pending Action section, click Buyer Requested Cancel check-box to filter orders that have Buyer requested cancellation orders.
- Order details page banner
- Order reports
- Orders API response (Marketplace Web Service (MWS) and SP-API)
Do I have to download order reports to be able to see buyer-initiated cancellations?
No. If you don’t use order reports, you will be notified of buyer-initiated cancellations through email, the Manage Orders page on Seller Central, and via APIs. The advantage of downloading order reports is that you are able to see all buyer-initiated cancellations in a single report. You have to switch the toggle option to enable the field called Buyer Requested Cancel.
What kind of cancellations negatively affect cancellation rate?
To learn more about the effect of order cancellations, on Order cancellations, go to the “What kind of cancellations negatively impact your Cancellation Rate metric?” section.
How do I contact a buyer?
You can contact the buyer through the Buyer-Seller Messaging service.
What should I do if I mistakenly cancel an order?
If you mistakenly cancel an order, it will affect your cancellation rate. You will no longer be able to see the buyer information once the order is canceled. However, if the buyer reaches out to you saying they still want the product, ask them to place a new order.
Can I cancel an order when its status shows Pending?
Orders are listed as Pending while AlphaDiscounters is verifying the payment method provided by the buyer. Pending orders do not include the buyer’s shipping address or contact information. These pending orders should not be shipped, even if the buyer contacts you directly. If the buyer contacts you while their order is in Pending status, refer them to AlphaDiscounters Customer Service.
Once the payment method is verified, in the Manage orders page, the Confirm shipment and Cancel order buttons will become available. In addition, the order will appear in both the orders report and the unshipped orders report. At this point, the order should be shipped (or canceled, if necessary).
For more information, go to Pending orders.
How long can an order be in Pending status before it is canceled?
In some cases, payment and order detail verification processes may potentially extend order processing time up to 14 days.
An order is canceled, neither the buyer nor I took action to cancel this order. Who canceled the order?
AlphaDiscounters can automatically cancel orders if seven days have passed after the expected shipping availability date, and you have not yet shipped and confirmed the shipment.
The buyer is not charged for an order until you confirm shipment.
How do I cancel partial orders?
You can issue full and partial refunds for each item in an order by using either the Refund Orders tool or the Order Adjustments Feed.
Occasionally, you may need to cancel part of an order with multiple items and refund the items that are canceled.
Note: To start a refund, the order should have already had the shipment confirmed.
What do I do if buyers reach out to update the address in the order?
If you have not yet shipped the order and the buyer says they cannot receive the order at the address they provided originally, ask the buyer to cancel the order. The buyer can then return to AlphaDiscounters to place a new order using the correct address. AlphaDiscounters policy requires sellers to ship only to the address provided in their seller account. If the buyer is unresponsive, you can send a critical message. If you do not hear back from the buyer, proceed with shipping the order to the address associated with the order to prevent an impact on your account health.
What should I do if I cannot fulfill this order because the address is undeliverable?
If you have not yet shipped the order you can reach out to the buyer by contacting them through the Buyer-Seller Messaging service to cancel this order and place new order for correct address. If the buyer is unresponsive, you can send a critical message.
If the order is shipped, you can contact the carrier service and ask them to return back the product and when the product gets back, you can deduct the restocking fee and refund the order.
What should I do if I need more details to fulfill this order and the buyer is unresponsive?
If you have already shipped the order, you can contact the carrier service and ask them to return the product because the buyer is unresponsive. When you receive the product, you can deduct the restocking fee from the order and can refund the buyer.
What are the next steps if I am unable to go ahead with fulfilling an order?
If you can’t fulfill the order due to certain scenarios, please don’t contact the buyer to cancel such orders. Examples of these scenarios are the following:
- Low or no inventory
- Forgot to turn on vacation settings and received an order
- Pricing errors
- Listing errors
- Technical issues that you may be having
Select appropriate reasons from the drop-down menu and cancel the order. Canceling these orders will affect your cancellation rate.