Shopify is discriminatory...

I have come to the conclusion, that merchants who use Shopify are unwittingly discriminating against people who do not have the ability to type quickly. Maybe they have arthritis, or carpal tunnel syndrome. Who knows, but I refuse to patronize ANY merchants, big or small, who choose Shopify as their method of payment. Primo out.

 

What the heck is shopify?

 

It's a "service" that provides online store fronts, payment vehicles, and possibly unsound business advice to garage hobbyists trying to have an go at selling their products. Our fellow TSD member Joseph has had problems with them in the recent past.

The transaction "timed out" before you enter your payment & shipping data? That is poor customer service. Shopify users will loose sales if there's an inability to be patient with either new customers or us folks that take a moment to get out the credit/debit card. With all the class specific Triggering going on, if they are Ageist and discriminate against the segment of the population that matured before the internet was on our refrigerators, they'll miss out on that old money & deep pockets.

 

No, Rick, the transaction, after I entered my payment information, said that the product was "sold". In other words, even though the product is "in your shopping cart" it is still available to anyone else. Ergo, if you are NOT able to enter your payment information quickly enough...too bad, sucker. You snooze, you lose. Hence: discrimination.

 

100 years from now this will all have worked itself out. Right now some purchase software does hold the item as you finish your purchase. It ought to if you are actively entering your payment and shipping data. I can understand the seller not wanting to loose a sale if someone "window shops", drops an item in a cart, and never comes back. How much merchandise would be left in limbo? My bookmarks have many items I've clicked on and checked all the way up to but not completed the transaction because I was just checking on how much the total would be including taxes & shipping.

 

I agree with your assessment of the other side of the coin... I could put something in my cart and not come back to the page for quite a while, and if it pulls it out of available inventory there could be multiple potential buyers that aren't able to buy it while I've temporarily hijacked the item. I think this comes up a lot with limited edition items that drop at a specific time and sell out quickly (i.e. Bufflehead, some brushes, etc), there's always complaints about an item going OOS while someone was typing in their payment info or took a phone call or whatever happened.
Bottom line is, whether its one way or the other, someone will always end up getting the short end of the stick. And it sucks when you're on whichever end is the short one!

 

This has come up before. Putting something in your cart should entitle you to have enough time to pay for it but not an inordinate amount of time. Some sites don't put a time limit on it but if you step away from your computer and it goes into sleep mode or becomes inactive you automatically get logged out of the shopping site and your cart empties allowing someone else to buy it, as it should be. Ticket selling websites actually time you once you put it in your cart and you can see how much time you have to complete the transaction. I'm a big fan of this approach. But even without it, I do believe that if you take more than 5 minutes to fill out the credit card or paypal info the product should be once again up for grabs. So I guess I sit in the middle between those who think that sellers should be protected by selling to the first person who fills out the payment info and those who think buyers should be given lots of time to continue shopping before finalizing the transaction. I don't like either of those approaches. So there.

 

Those young, PayPal ready, and clean-shaven whippersnappers...


I bet he doesn't use words like "Ergo," so you've got that on him, @Primotenore .

 

But did you see how fast he can hit the Backspace button?

That would take care of the issue. A count down timer in one corner. Buy it or it's back on the shelf for others.

 

You do know how to make me feel better, Charlie. That took 30 seconds to type.

 

Word.

 

GREAT suggestion. Now go tell Paladin and Varlet, etc.
Ken has a beautiful 5th Anniversary PK-47 drop coming up and NOW he has posted a Shopify discalimer. I am NOT fighting this "free-for-all" crud.
https://www.paladinshaving.com/pages/special-events

 

I am NOT fighting this "free-for-all" crud

I agree with you Joseph. I do not own a cell phone, "smartphone"...whatever. And to the disbelief of those who discover this (as they continually glance at their phone while we're having an "almost" face to face conversation), I'm not an anti-tech luddite against progress. What I'm against is when tech prompts me to modify my behaviours to suit it.

I've noticed how debit and credit cards have replaced the actual cash in my wallet. But recently I've reverted to keeping a small "float" at home and on my person. This was brought to my attention when GirlGuides come door to door selling their fundraising cookies and there is no cash in the house at all. Or I go to the supermarket and there's a similar group of Scouts selling apples, again.....sorry, no cash. The mothers accompanying their GirlGuide daughters smile and confirm to me that the kids aren't selling much for this very reason..........few people have cash. Yes, I guess these organisations will have to "get with the program" and bring card terminals with them. Let's modify our behaviours again.

My pizza delivery guy comes to the door with my order yesterday. I'm famished and can't wait to eat. He stands there and screws around with his "new terminal" trying to enter passwords and waiting for authorizations. Almost a full five minutes goes by as my food is getting cold. I offer to just pay in cash and he is hesitant because the phone order said payment would be made by credit card. I gave him cash that would cover the bill and include his tip, then collected my pizza.

The customer will dictate how he will pay. And how many hoops he's willing to jump through, and how fast he will do it.

If the seller makes it difficult in any way, by making me wait for something that should be simple, or by making me "hurry up" for something that should be simple, they've lost me as a customer. I will not play.
I commend you for your stance with this merchant.

 

I hear you and sympathize. As for the whole currency thing, I always have some cash on me. I will typically take out $200 at the ATM and that will last me for a while. I'll use it mostly for the things you mention like spontaneous purchases like girl scout cookies. Also, during the summer months I find myself at many more concessions than the rest of the year. So, if we go to the boardwalk you can't really enjoy it without having cash in your pocket. I also have a 16 year old and occasionally he will need money and will drop him some funds for lunch during the week at school or if he's going with friends into town. He just started working and now has his own source of money so the need to fund his activities will start to decline a bit. When I get down to about $50 I'll hit the ATM again and replenish my cash on hand. That said, if I can pay with a credit card I will. I get points and cash back so it doesn't make sense to use cash unless I really have to. More and more things can be purchased with a credit card now and I pay mine off in full every month. No credit card balances. One side issue with the lack of use of cash is that so many people who you pay for things can no longer make change. They have no idea how to add, subtract and conduct simple cash transactions. It's quite sad actually.

 

On many e-commerce sites the time-out period is an adjustable setting. If it is too short, you will annoy the buyer (OP) and if it is too long, you may lose another potential customer. I set my store to remove items in the basket after 90 minutes which I think is a fair compromise.

 

I politely suggested to Ken at Paladin, that they institute a MEASLY one minute "hold", to give the purchaser, who had waited patiently and successfully added the product to their virtual shopping cart, an opportunity to enter their payment info. It was met with...crickets. I hope he's reading these posts. LOL. As if...
BTW, if I were to post this on TSN...instant ban, guaranteed.

 

Not bad. Even on a rubber dome keyboard that's pretty good.

 

That says everything to me. I'll pass on his brushes regardless of how he decides to sell them.

 

I pass on those and similar over subscribed shaving tools. I wait for the fad to pass and they start showing up on thevBST at site where they favor the latest flavor.

 

Wow. 90 minutes is quite generous.