Thread: Recurring Orders

Could someone give me an overview of how recurring orders work?

1. Does a customer login and create a "recurring cart" and then shop or do they select that they want to have it recurr during checkout?

2. Based on the frequency, how are we alerted that a recurring order is coming up due for shipment?

3. Is it easy to place the recurring order from an admin standpoint? Do we have to shop as the customer or is it as simple as 1 or 2 clicks?

I do not yet have my ASPDBSF up and running yet but am trying to think ahead.

Thanks for any insight.

1. Does a customer login and create a "recurring cart" and then shop or do they select that they want to have it recurr during checkout?

Individual products are marked as recurring, with the interval set on the product itself. A customer adds a recurring product to their cart and checks out as they would with any other product.

2. Based on the frequency, how are we alerted that a recurring order is coming up due for shipment?

These are show on the recurring order page in the admin site.

3. Is it easy to place the recurring order from an admin standpoint? Do we have to shop as the customer or is it as simple as 1 or 2 clicks?

If you wanted to place a recurring order on behalf of the customer, you could use the phone order entry system in the admin site to impersonate the customer. Is it easy? I would say it is

All very well answered Dan, thanks.

Let me follow-up on my last question as I dont think I asked it properly.

Say a customer places an order with a product setup to recur every 12 weeks. At the end of the 12 weeks, this shows up on the recurring order page (per your answer to #2). What is needed done to make this an actual order that we can pick and pack?

In our current cart we keep all recurring orders in a spreadsheet. When they are due to go out we go to our cart and shop like the customer and place the order. We then go to authorize.net and rebill a previous order. At that point it shows up in our orders screen as a new order.

There is a "recurring shipments due today" item on the admin menu. On that page, you simply click the Process Recurring Shipments button and it generates orders for all of the recurring items. Then they would be processed through your admin site just like a normal order.

Ok, so my understanding is that a ARB transaction is created in authorize.net for the recurring order, then authorize.net keeps track of the intervals and posts back to ASPDNSF thereby creating the upcoming orders data.

Now, what if the price has changed from the original order? Say for example the customer bought FOO for $29.95 and had $8.99 shipping. 4 intervals down the road the shipping is now $9.29. Does authorize.net get updated with the new amount or do we lose out on this increase?

Thanks

The charge remains at what the customer originally agreed to, in your example $29.95 and $8.99 in shipping. The original terms can't be altered.

There are a couple of options:

• You could cancel that ARB agreement, and setup a brand new one, but the customer would be in effect placing a new order.
• You could anticipate cost increases, and markup the price and/or shipping accordingly.

I have recurring items setup and users have purchased them. but nothing shows up in pending orders. on looking in to why I discovered that I needed to and my site/authpost.aspx at authorize, which I have now done.

Would that be the reason nothing is in my pending orders, or am I missing something else?

Now that I have added that link in the authorize account will all past reoccurring orders show up, or only orders placed here on out?

If only new orders will show up how can I remedy the orders already placed?

If the reccurring orders need to be changed how is authorize notified of this.

Maybe I don't understand how it is working, I could be missing something fundamental, not sure, I cant find documentation that explains the process.

Any Guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

bump really need some help here.

This doesn't seem to answer one of the original questions though - in that can a Customer sign up for - or select a recurring order?

It sounds like any/ALL Customers who try to add a "recurring product" would be forced into it.

What if Customer A only wanted to buy this product once.....
But Customer B wants it to be shipped/billed every month?

How about setting two different variants on that product? One has recurring interval set, and the other just a regular item. Of course, you need to specify "recurring" label to reflect on the name to determine. Currently, once a customer bought recurring items they're automatically added to recurring shipment lists. There is no option for them at first to specify one-time purchase unless they go to their Account page -> View Order History section, and cancel the recurring shipment from there.