An order paid in advance is an odd state for a shop to be in: the customer has confirmed it, you have it in the system, the goods are set aside — and nobody knows whether anything will come of it. Some of those orders are paid within the hour. Some are never paid and nobody notices until the monthly tidy-up.
Meanwhile they block stock, distort your figures and, at worst, get shipped by mistake.
Why nobody watches them
Because an unpaid order makes no sound. A new order sends an e-mail, a cancellation sends an e-mail, but “this order has been in the same state for three days” is not an event — it is the absence of one. And no system announces an absence on its own.
So it gets handled by hand, through a filter in the administration that somebody opens now and then. Which is to say, at random.
When an order is genuinely unpaid
Not immediately. A bank transfer moves at its own pace, and if you set the threshold too low you will be chasing people who are opening their banking app right now.
A reasonable estimate by payment method:
- Payment gateway (card, Apple Pay, instant transfer) — if no payment arrives within 30 minutes, the transaction failed or the customer abandoned it. This is where a reminder converts best, because the customer is still at the computer.
- Ordinary bank transfer — allow one working day. An order placed on Friday evening is not neglected on Monday morning; it is waiting to clear.
- Cash on delivery and pickup — this problem does not apply at all, payment happens on handover.
What works in practice
Three steps, no more:
- An alert for you once your chosen threshold passes. Not an e-mail to the customer — someone on the team should hear about the order first, because the cause is often on your side (a failed gateway, a wrong payment reference).
- One reminder to the customer with a link to pay again. One, not a series. A second reminder barely moves conversion and reliably raises complaints.
- Automatic cancellation after the deadline stated in your terms. It frees the stock and cleans up the figures. Tell the customer — not because you must, but because some people order again after that e-mail.
What not to do
- Do not remind within minutes. It reads as suspicion, and with gateway payments it usually outruns data that is still on its way to you.
- Do not conflate unpaid orders with abandoned carts. They are two different things with different legal and commercial weight. An order is binding; a cart is not.
- Do not rely on someone noticing. A rule that depends on somebody feeling like opening a filter is not a rule.
How to watch it automatically
Notify has a separate event for exactly this case: when an order is still unpaid after the delay you set, an alert goes to the channel where the team will actually see it — not another e-mail into an inbox that already has forty. The message carries the order number, the amount, the payment method and how long it has been waiting, so you can decide without opening the administration.
On your CMS this needs no change to the shop; the addon derives the event itself from what the platform sends.