Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Do you have instant capture enabled in the module itself? Otherwise that Capture button should be clickable.

[alphabet]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Hi Rick.
I do not have the instant capture box checked in the Payments tab.

The capture button is not clickable.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Then something else is wrong, you should open a ticket.

[alphabet]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

I reopened ticket. Thank you.

[Datagg]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Odd.... First time seen this. We got an email from store of an order, looked good, showed amazon payments done, THEN we go to look at it to begin making them, says Authorization State:Declined. Why would we have gotten a merchant email from a failed status. Its almost like it was approved by Amazon for like 15 minutes, then declined later.

Another thought. Since we got an order confirmation, even though Amazon declined the payment as to what appears to be an after thought, did the customer get one also?... If so, then we have some explaining to do.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Amazon doesn't approve or decline until up to 15 minutes after the order is placed, so that's possible.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

This is a serious issue and we have advised our clients to press both Amazon/Miva Merchant on it, in conjunction with completely disabling/removing the payment method altogether. Quite risky to get a large order via Miva Merchant, only to find that it has been declined minutes later. I realize it might not have anything to do with Miva Merchant since they are ultimately just following Amazon's API, but they are pretty much the only point of contact for our clients with an API/development issue such as this. Account reps simply say they will pass it on, and nothing comes of it.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

There's nothing on our end we can do at all, it's always been a limitation of the Amazon process model and it will always be (at some level).

Currently the VAST majority of Approves or Declines come within 90 seconds (I believe something like 95% of them, but I'd need to confirm with Amazon).

Fundamentally, Amazon long ago made a decision to let every order through and do fraud scrubbing, approvals and declines (and on Amazon.com itself, even Inventory) after the sale is completed.

That's at odds with how most others run their business, so it's simply a data point you need to be aware of when using any of the Amazon Payments solutions.

[Datagg]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

And thus the first we had this happen (Knock On wood).... I guess the main lesson to learn here is not to place shipping results prior to capture. I believe that's how Amazon wants the pecking order to be, yet with this that's not going to happen any longer. What compounded it even more is the successful order email. With a few employes making chains as orders come in that passed Fraud Status and shows being successfully captured, we are ready to make them. Then when my secretary heads in there to slap shipping in, then capture being denied things are halted quickly and hopefully chains aren't cut already. Plus I gotta figure the customer thinks they got a successful order and product is on its way. System is quite broken.

Anyways, since Amazon payments we do well with, we will just have to have an extra level of awareness from this day forward.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Agreed and what I think is reasonable for us is to add some extra layers of admin notifications, perhaps even emails on that type of triggered event. I'm going to talk to Dev about it.

[Datagg]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Agreed and what I think is reasonable for us is to add some extra layers of admin notifications, perhaps even emails on that type of triggered event. I'm going to talk to Dev about it.

Great idea Rick!!! Please keep us posted.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Rick, completely understand and that's why I added those additional comments to my response. That said, we had a client get a large order notification the other day, only to find out it was later declined. Luckily they caught it, but it was very close to being processed. I guess this is a warning to those considering Amazon Payments, especially the recent marketing push.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Rick, there was a method for preventing communication of order information back to Miva Merchant with Checkout by Amazon, bascially using Amazon admin as the process point. Do you know if that exists with Amazon Payments, or do you have a contact we can get in touch with to clarify that with further?

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

I don't believe that's possible in this version as there's no amazon backend for this set of apis. I'll ask my amazon contact to chime in.

[rejamison]

Re: Configuring the New Amazon Payments Module

Hi Dan,

The payment flow for Amazon Payments is that authorizations always begin in a pending state. We then make a best efforts attempt to authorize and move to either approved or declined within 2 minutes, in most cases. In rare cases, an authorization may be held up to 24 hours for manual review.

The module configuration includes a "Transaction Timeout" setting which can be used to move pending transactions to declined after a certain interval of time. The default is 24 hours (1440 minutes). The shorter your timeout setting, the greater the chance that you might lose a small number of manually reviewed orders, so I'd recommend choosing the longest interval that works well in your order management process, perhaps 15 minutes or so.


Thanks,

Robert Jamison
Amazon Payments