- When are payment records updated for a subscriber?
- How do credit card retries work?
- What is refresh credit card expiration & how does it work?
- Why does Ordergroove need payment information if it’s saved on our side?
- Is Ordergroove a payment processor/gateway?
- What payment processors & gateways can Ordergroove integrate with?
- Which payment method will be charged for the user’s subscription order?
- How does Ordergroove handle tax on subscriptions and orders?
- Can customers use loyalty points to pay for their subscription orders?
- Can customers use gift cards to pay for their subscription orders?
- Can customers apply coupons to their upcoming orders? Add coupons in the Subscription Manager?
- Does Ordergroove store CVV?
- Does Ordergroove authorize payment for recurring transactions?
- Are changes on a customer's default card synced to Ordergroove?
- How does Ordergroove handle expiring credit cards?
- Why does Ordergroove want the customer to have a default payment token for subscriptions?
- Why can’t a customer have the same SKU as a subscription and a one-time product in the same checkout?
- How can I view which products in checkout are on a subscription? (Shopify)
- What happens if I remove Stripe as a secondary payment processor from my Shopify store?
- Why do I need to send Purchase Post requests for non-subscription transactions? What does Ordergroove do with that data?
- What payment is used when new subscriptions are created?
- What happens if I don’t send the Purchase Post right away? Does it need to be sent before the customer lands on the confirmation page?
- What do I do if I use a fraud system on my orders? Do I send the Purchase Post immediately or wait for verification?
- Does the merchant_order_id value in a Purchase Post request need to be unique?
- If a customer is checking out as a guest without subscriptions, what should the user_id field include in the Purchase Post request be?
- If a customer is checking out without a subscription, and it is a Buy Online, Pickup In Store (BOPUS purchase), what shipping address data should I include in the Purchase Post request?
- If a customer is checking out without a subscription and is using an alternative payment method, what payment data should I include in the Purchase Post request?
- Guests are not assigned a unique user ID in our system -- what should their user_id be for requests sent to Ordergroove?
General Questions
Q: When are payment records updated for a subscriber?
Ordergroove will tie individual subscriptions to a payment record which is received via the Purchase POST upon completion of a transaction that includes subscription items. Clients that host a default payment can update all subscriptions for a customer by making an API call to Ordergroove’s update_payment_default endpoint.
When a client makes a request to this endpoint, Ordergroove will search for all of the customer’s subscription records and update all of them to the newly provided token.
Q: How do credit card retries work?
For more information about credit card retry protocols, click here.
Q: What is refresh credit card expiration & how does it work?
For more information about credit card expiration information, click here.
Q: Why does Ordergroove need payment information if it’s saved on our side?
Ordergroove uses payment information for the Subscription Manager and email messaging. We also use credit card expiration dates to message customers about impending expirations, as well as suppressing orders associated with expired cards.
Q: Is Ordergroove a payment processor/gateway?
No, Ordergroove does not directly process payments. When we place recurring orders for your customers through our Order Placement API, we send the order to your e-commerce platform, which then processes payment and fulfillment downstream of Ordergroove.
Q: What payment processors & gateways can Ordergroove integrate with?
Ordergroove supports a variety of payment processors and gateways. For a full list please visit our Service Glossary.
Q: Which payment method will be charged for the user’s subscription order?
Ordergroove will use the payment method tied to the initial subscription order unless the customer has updated their payment within the Subscription Manager.
Q: How does Ordergroove handle tax on subscriptions and orders?
Ordergroove does not calculate taxes on subscriptions or orders. Taxes are handled externally by your eCommerce platform or a 3rd party tax service.
If you use our Shopify or BigCommerce integrations, Ordergroove can apply taxes configured on those platforms for recurring subscription orders.
Here's an example if you use Shopify:
- Ordergroove sends the order, without tax, to Shopify
- Shopify calculates the tax, or Shopify sends the order to a tax service like Avalara to calculate
- Shopify charges the customer and lets Ordergroove know if it was successful
Q: Can customers use loyalty points to pay for their subscription orders?
No. As Ordergroove isn't integrated with your loyalty program, we do not process any loyalty program points for your customers.
Many of our clients that do have loyalty programs apply these points downstream of Ordergroove when they receive the recurring order through the channel that we place those through. Additionally, some clients utilize the various reports that Ordergroove makes available to process loyalty points downstream from Ordergroove.
For customers looking to redeem points, Ordergroove is currently unable to apply those points to recurring purchases for rewards.
For Shopify merchants, Yotpo has created an integration that allows customers to earn and redeem points on their subscription orders. For more information, go here: Getting Started with Yotpo and Ordergroove
Q: Can customers use gift cards to pay for their subscription orders?
Gift cards are a valid form of payment for subscription orders — however, your system should require an additional valid payment method on file, in the event that the gift card depletes or lacks the balance to cover the subscription cost.
NOTE: On Shopify, gift cards can only be used on the initial order. Customers must still enter a credit or debit card to be used for recurring orders.
Q: Can customers apply coupons to their upcoming orders? Add coupons in the Subscription Manager?
Currently, there is no method in place to apply merchant coupons to upcoming orders. As subscribers are some of your most loyal customers, it’s recommended that they have stronger incentives than standard site promos.
Q: Does Ordergroove store CVV?
No. Recurring orders must be authorized without the presence of a CVV.
Q: Does Ordergroove authorize payment for recurring transactions?
No, with some exceptions. Ordergroove only stores payment information as required by integration specifications, sending that information back to the merchant for authorization when processing an order. Ordergroove never makes a direct authorization call to a payment gateway at any point in the subscription lifecycle.
A typical integration will see Ordergroove provided with either a merchant-generated payment token, a merchant user id, or the complete card details. If the latter is chosen, the card number will arrive from the merchant AES-encrypted with a merchant-specific Ordergroove hash key in transit. Ordergroove then will tokenize the card and re-encrypt the last 4 digits of the card with an internal hash key. All payment details are AES-encrypted at rest in Ordergroove’s database.
For merchants on Shopify PLUS, however, Ordergroove’s Shopify App does authorize the payment with the merchant’s payment processor prior to making the final order create a call to Shopify’s API.
Q: Are changes on a customer's default card synced to Ordergroove?
Default credit card changes can be synced to Ordergroove by sending a POST request to the Update Payment Default endpoint.
Q: How does Ordergroove handle expiring credit cards?
Ordergroove triggers payment update reminder emails on the 1st and 15th of every month if a customer’s upcoming order is tied to an expired credit card. If payment information is still expired on the day the order is scheduled to place, Ordergroove will automatically withhold and reject the order and send the customer an advisory email. Note, emails will only trigger if they are set up within RC3. For help or questions with setup, please open a support ticket.
Q: Why does Ordergroove want the customer to have a default payment token for subscriptions?
We’ve found that customers expect that a payment method change to one subscription will apply to all their subscriptions. Applying a default payment token results in less customer confusion overall, especially when applying payment updates across subscriptions.
Q: Why can’t a customer have the same SKU as a subscription and a one-time product in the same checkout?
Ordergroove mirrors your customer’s cart and associates a customer’s subscription selections with a unique product SKU. If the same SKU were in the cart twice, Ordergroove would treat it as a duplicate and overwrite one of the two products. If you need this functionality available to you, one solution would be to host your own sign-up offers and send the subscriptions after checkout to the Purchase Post endpoint.
Q: How can I view which products in checkout are on a subscription? (Shopify)
When a customer checks out of your Shopify store, there may be times when their cart contains products that they have opted-in to subscribe to. You can review which of those products are earmarked for subscription by viewing the initial order in your Shopify admin.
Our Shopify Plus app explicitly writes in this information on the subscribed-to products in the Shopify order. We use a line item property to denote whether or not a product is subscribed to, and record other information relevant to the subscription in the Additional Details field (captured via local storage).
Since Ordergroove facilitates the recurring orders for subscription items (e.g. 2nd order > N), Ordergroove records this information so that we can place the future recurring orders of the subscription for the customer back into your Shopify environment.
Here are some examples of how our Shopify Plus app writes in and/or records the needed information about subscription orders that Ordergroove needs:
Products in an order that customers have subscribed to are marked in Shopify using the line item property: “og_subscription: true”
Other subscription-relevant information we capture is shown in the “Additional Details” field. The data recorded here are things like the product variant ID, the Shopify CustomerID, item quantity, shipment frequency, and the shipping address used for the subscription.
As mentioned at the beginning of this question, the information in the examples above can be found in the initial order record in your Shopify Admin. Using tags, Ordergroove identifies which orders are an initial order for a subscription and those which are recurring orders placed on behalf of the customer.
Initial orders are tagged in Shopify using the “Ordergroove Trigger Order.”
Q: What happens if I remove Stripe as a secondary payment processor from my Shopify store?
If you remove Stripe as a secondary payment gateway, subscription payments will be rejected and Ordergroove sends out an email to your customers letting them know that we were unable to process their order due to credit card issues. This will prompt the customer to update their credit card through the standard Shopify payment update flow; adding it to your primary payment processor.
Purchase Post Questions
Q: Why do I need to send Purchase Post requests for non-subscription transactions? What does Ordergroove do with that data?
Ordergroove uses non-subscription purchase data to train our AnticipateAI engine, which analyzes purchase patterns to predict appropriate fulfillment dates and is used for our Predictive Reorder via SMS channel.
Q: What payment is used when new subscriptions are created?
When a customer creates a new subscription through checkout Ordergroove will create the new subscription with whatever payment details were sent in the Purchase POST for that transaction (despite previous calls to the update payment default endpoint).
If the client would like new subscriptions to be assigned to the same default token regardless of what payment is used during checkout they can either:
- Retrieve the token information saved for the customer and send that in the Purchase POST.
- Call the update payment default endpoint after checkout to update all subscriptions.
Some best practices around communicating default payment during checkout:
- Display messaging in the cart asking the customer if they want to use their default payment for checkout since there are subscriptions in their cart.
- Display messaging in the cart to the customer asking if they want to update their default payment for all existing subscriptions when the customer uses a payment different than their stored default.
Q: What happens if I don’t send the Purchase Post right away? Does it need to be sent before the customer lands on the confirmation page?
If Ordergroove is hosting the front-end subscription enrollment content on your site, the Purchase Post request must be sent immediately on checkout, and ideally before the customer lands on the confirmation page. If the customer is allowed to move to other pages of the site before this request is sent, Ordergroove’s main.js script will load, calling the cartCompare() function and clearing out the “ghost” cart that our system uses to track subscription orders.
If you need to perform other actions before subscription creation, like fraud review, you can send the Purchase Post request with a “processed”: false key/value pair to indicate that the initial order is still pending verification. This will queue the order and lock the “ghost” cart that contains the subscription order until a follow-up call to the Subscription Verification API confirms whether or not Ordergroove should create the subscription.
If you are hosting the front-end content, the Purchase Post request can be sent any time after order submission. We recommend sending the Purchase Post request as quickly as possible, as it triggers subscription creation and email verification, permitting the customer to quickly view and manage their subscriptions and creating a better overall customer experience.
Q: What do I do if I use a fraud system on my orders? Do I send the Purchase Post immediately or wait for verification?
The best practice is to use our Subscription Verification feature by adding an additional processed: false value, indicating that the final fraud verification is pending in Ordergroove.
After your fraud checks are complete, you can send an update to the Subscription Verification endpoint, changing the processed value to true, at which point Ordergroove will create the subscription in the database. For details around Ordergroove's verification API's contact your Success representative or open a Support Ticket.
Q: Does the merchant_order_id value in a Purchase Post request need to be unique?
Yes. The merchant_order_id identifies an individual order in your system for which the customer has opted-in to a subscription and must be unique. However, when retrying a failed order request, you should use the same merchant_order_id value as the initial attempt.
Q: If a customer is checking out as a guest without subscriptions, what should the user_id field include in the Purchase Post request be?
One solution would be to send an email address in this field — if your system does not allow for assigning a unique identifier of any kind for guests, these transactions should not trigger Purchase Post requests to Ordergroove.
Q: If a customer is checking out without a subscription, and it is a Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPUS purchase), what shipping address data should I include in the Purchase Post request?
Ordergroove does not require shipping address information for customers checking out without a subscription. You can omit the shipping address object from the Purchase Post request entirely.
Q: If a customer is checking out without a subscription and is using an alternative payment method, what payment data should I include in the Purchase Post request?
Ordergroove does not require payment information for customers checking out without a subscription. You can omit the payment object from the Purchase Post request entirely.
Depending on the needs of your integration, your support team may have other specific instructions.
Q: Guests are not assigned a unique user ID in our system — what should their user_id be for requests sent to Ordergroove?
One solution would be to send an email address in this field; if your system does not allow for assigning a unique identifier of any kind for guests, these transactions should not trigger Purchase Post requests to Ordergroove.