Best practices to Prevent Payment Disputes for WooCommerce Store

Running an online store is a challenging task. Business owners face several ups and downs. Today, we will learn about payment disputes. Before you leap into building a WooCommerce store, read this post. It will prevent you from losing revenue from sales. But first, we want to congratulate you on choosing WooCommerce for your online business.

Why WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source platform. Thus, you can stay within the budget. It also allows you to customize and scale your e-commerce site using third-party plugins. They help add functionality to your e-commerce site. For example, the advanced WooCommerce Lens plugin lets optical retailers set up an e-store quickly.

If you wish to sell prescription eyeglasses, the WooCommerce prescription plugin is a must-have for your store. It will also improve your user experience by helping them buy products with easy steps.

However, regardless of the e-commerce platform, you may experience payment disputes. Scroll below to learn in-depth.

How to reduce payment disputes on your WooCommerce store?

The first step to addressing any problem is to know what it is.

A payment dispute can occur any time after the initial sale, within days, weeks or months. If a cardholder calls their credit card provider to question a charge on their bill, it is considered a payment dispute. Remember, credit card companies take these complaints seriously. Upon finding the complaint valid, they will provide the customer with a refund.

It will resolve customers’ complaints but impact your WooCommerce store. For example, you lose revenue from your sales.

Why do these disputes or chargebacks happen? The primary reasons are dissatisfaction and fraudulent activities. Many online retailers make the mistake of neglecting this dispute. They assume it will stop on its own. But in reality, they get worse and impact the store's profitability in the long run. The temporary solution is to respond immediately and submit the basic and additional documentation evidence. Remember, you need a solution that prevents future occurrences of payment disputes. Below, we have listed the necessary steps.

Tips to prevent payment disputes for your WooCommerce store

If you follow these strategies, you can reduce the payment dispute rate significantly.

1. Leverage clear bank statement descriptor

A Bank statement descriptor refers to a brief sentence printed for each purchase on credit card statements. It includes your business name, the state/region/province, or phone number. Make sure it is at most 22 characters.

Think out of the box when using a descriptor for your WooCommerce store. After all, it should be easily recognizable to your customers.

Moreover, a clear statement descriptor helps your customers know where they purchase a product. It might significantly lessen disagreements brought on by erroneous charges.

2. Use the business name on the transaction receipts.

Besides giving a clear bank descriptor, you should put precise company information on customer receipts. Thus, they will call you rather than their credit card provider if there is an issue. With this, you can protect your WooCommerce store from payment disputes.

However, be careful about using your company info. It should cover everything, your business name to address, website, phone number, logo, and customer service message. Plus, watch out that it does not affect the receipt's transactional information.

3. Address client problems quickly

Chargebacks happen because of several reasons. And many of them you can resolve by offering excellent customer service. The best thing you can do is address them before reaching the dispute stage.

Your client complains about a product you sell on your WooCommerce store. Let us say they are unhappy about the quality, the item sustained damage during delivery or other elements. In any case, pay attention to their problem and help them find a solution to prevent a chargeback.

4. Review your orders

Whenever you receive an order, the first thing you should do is review it. With this, you can spot any signs of fraud or risk.

On your WooCommerce store dashboard, you can access WooCommerce Payments. It has a risk level column and scores every transaction based on fraud risk. It is advisable to avoid fulfilling transactions with a label that is not normal. Instead, call the cardholder and review the order. 

If no one replies, even after several tries, consider canceling the transaction and initiating the refund.

5. Obtain proof of delivery

As mentioned, payment disputes can happen weeks or months after the sale. Therefore, you must have proof of delivery. Using this piece of evidence, you can protect your WooCommerce store from fraud. It will work in your favor when a customer complains about no product delivery.

Some examples are providing delivery tracking information, requesting a signature upon delivery, or photographing the last item to be delivered.

The bottom line

You can practice these tips and prevent payment disputes on your WooCommerce store. Chargebacks are manageable and preventable. All you need to do is strengthen your defenses. But never ignore payment disputes. It will only cause more problems. 

If you want to build a customized store for your business, contact SoftProdigy. We have been offering quality WooCommerce development services for several years. We also deal in paid-for plugins like the WooCommerce eyeglass prescription plugin.