I’m seeing all sorts of comments and getting all sorts of questions about what happened last night with the website/shopping cart. Here’s what happened:
There is a delay in checking out with Paypal and the stock on the website updating. When customers go to pay via Paypal others can also check out via the website for the same item… Which means a lot of people can get to the Paypal payment step at the same time, and then the Paypal payments go through and the website freaks out because it’s now got negative stock. This happened so badly with the demand for the Pretty Boho boxes that it was negative 25 boxes and the website still wasn’t able to update the stock to say that it was out because people were still making purchases.
I fortunately brought my laptop with me this weekend (I’m out of town attending a funeral) and caught the error 6 minutes in, but at that point a lot of damage had already been done.
I am trying to see if I can get any more boxes put together so that at least some of the 30+ backorders can be filled. I am not sure if this will happen or not. I should know within the next day or so if there will be more boxes or if I will be refunding people. Please be patient as I work this out. If you want to be refunded immediately, leave a comment with your Paypal email address or send me an email and I will refund you.
This also leads to the next thing I want to address, which is the number of boxes. I’ve gotten a lot of emails and comments telling me that I need to release more boxes–but this is not something I have much control over. I am completely dependent on the number of contributors each month. If we don’t get a lot of contributors, we can’t put together a lot of boxes. If you want more boxes released each month, consider becoming a contributor! We are still accepting applications for September! =]
A lot of you are also requesting that the checkout be limited to one box per checkout so that customers can’t buy out all of the boxes or buy multiples. I see how this is both fair and unfair, and my thought at this point in time is to perhaps release each box theme at a different time/day so that only one theme is available at a time. I am still trying to figure out the best way to do this, but trust me, your concerns are being heard!
July buyers with coupon codes – I know those didn’t work, but I don’t know why as they worked during testing. It may have been due to all the traffic and craziness with the shopping carts. If you had a coupon code that didn’t work, please leave a comment with your PAYPAL email address and you will be partially refunded (or fully refunded if we don’t get more boxes together).
For September we may have an entirely different shopping cart or checkout system. I’m going to be looking into different options and seeing what will work best, but if anyone has any ideas or recommendations I’d love to hear them. We need something that updates IMMEDIATELY to prevent payments from going through when there isn’t any stock. Or perhaps something that “holds” an item in someone’s cart for 5 minutes or so and during that time no one else can purchase it. As I said, I’m open to recommendations.
Also, please note that I will no longer be sending Indie Gift Boxes out for review. I sent four out to review in July which was great as I believe it brought a lot of you here, and I have one going out for review for August (which was arranged long before the boxes went on sale), but after this all boxes will be for customers only (and possibly an occasional giveaway).
Please accept my apology for all the confusion, shopping cart errors, and craziness from last night! I really had no way to anticipate that any of this would happen, and I feel pretty awful about it. I’m trying to work out the kinks and get everything together, but as it’s just me running Indie Gift Box, it may take a few days to get the hundreds of emails sorted and the boxes and everything together. I appreciate your patience and understanding!
Thank you for keeping us all updated! Hopefully this will just be a sign to contributors about how awesome the indie gift box concept is so they will donate more product in the future & there can be more boxes. I really think this is an amazing way for crafters & the like to get the word out about their businesses!
That’s what I’m hoping for! I really am hoping this is getting them all lots of business and getting their names out there!
Hopefully a lot more people will contribute now they know this is so popular! This is a great way to discover new artists.
Question – Is the first come first serve based on who added it to their cart first or who completed their order (all credit card, mailing info, etc. entered) first? When I added it to my cart it said there were 3 left but that does not mean I was able to complete my order prior to some one else that added the box to their cart. You may or may not know the answer at this time but I thought it was worth checking
Good luck getting this sorted out!
Hi Jennifer! The way it works is the first to complete the order, which includes mailing info and Paypal payment! This is actually a big part of the problem as 30+ people all had the same item in their cart at once then got to the Paypal payment page at the same time. It’s only AFTER the Paypal payment goes through that the stock is updated, which resulted in the back-orders. Basically there WAS stock when everyone got to the Paypal page, but by the time the four boxes were sold there were still 30 more orders paid for just seconds later through Paypal (from people who had already “checked out” on the main website)–so when the information was sent back to the website it freaked out because it now had negative stock but couldn’t pause the payments people were making once they’d already gotten to the Paypal section. Even after I pulled the boxes completely from the website I got more orders in from people who had made it as far as the Paypal payment page before I removed the boxes. Hope that answers your question!
Thank you for keeping us all updated!
Hopefully, you can pull together the extra boxes!
I bet you are crazy stressed out with this.
I can’t believe how crazy the checkouts were last night, I was one of the many staying up and setting my alarm for midnight so I could get a lovely box. The whole indie gift box concept is so great and obviously people are loving it! Hopefully all that attention will bring in more sponsors soon ^.^ I’m hoping I’ll be able to contribute for the September boxes, I’m still pulling together some stuff.
xoxo, jamie brooke