I think we would all agree that when a retailer like Walmart cancels our orders, it really sucks. But what if I told you that there's actually a silver lining to this and that when your orders get canceled you can actually make money from it? Interested? Read on!
When Orders Get Cancelled for Payment Issues
Sometimes when you place your order on Walmart you get an email right away letting you know that your order had been cancelled. There are a few different reasons this might have happened.
First, is where there's a payment issue. Many of these retailers don't actually charge your card until your item ships out (which could be many days after you placed the order). So your order may go through successfully, but if there is a problem with your card when the item actually goes to ship out, your order will be cancelled.
When that happens you can usually chat in or call in and just update your credit card information and the payment and order will go through. Since this is considered “your fault”, Walmart won't give you a discount if this happens to you.
(Oddly enough, this has been happening more and more with gift cards as well on Home Depot. When you place an order on Home Depot with a gift card, Home Depot is supposed to take the cost of the item off the card and hold it until the item ships. If the item gets cancelled from the order before it ships out, the money should be released back onto the gift card. On the other hand, if the item does successfully ship out, the money permanently comes off the card. That's how it's supposed to work.
For some reason, Home Depot's website is not working correctly lately. So the system won't hold the funds, which then allows you to spend it on other orders. Eventually everything catches up and your gift card runs out of money and Home Depot starts cancelling your orders. Yikes. The simplest way around this is to keep track of how much money is on each of your gift cards. If it's supposed to have $0, assume it does and don't try to use it again!)
When Walmart Cancels Your Orders for To Avoid Fraud
Another reason why Walmart (and Home Depot) might cancel your order is because they are afraid you are committing fraud! If they notice that a new buyer is suddenly placing a lot of orders that are shipping to different addresses (common for us dropshippers), they might cancel some of the orders. Some dropshippers believe that their orders are being cancelled because they are dropshipping. In my experience though, it has nothing to do with being a reseller.
As time goes on, Walmart will stop cancelling your orders. You just need to keep placing orders in the meantime. Walmart is also far less likely to cancel your orders if you use gift cards or PayPal to pay. So it helps to mix it up: place some orders with paypal or gift cards and others with your credit card. In no time, Walmart will stop cancelling most of your order!
(Even now, after I've done hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchases on Walmart, Walmart still cancels some of my orders for big electronics like televisions. Walmart seems to be extra afraid of fraud for these items. We just delete these items from our eBay and Amazon stores and find other ones to sell!)
If you order is cancelled for this reason, just use another payment method and you'll be fine. Walmart won't give you a discount for this problem though.
Backordered and Out of Stock Items
Okay now for the good stuff. If you run into the next problem, there is a good chance you can use it to your benefit to make some extra cash!
In rare cases, your supplier will cancel your order because they are out of stock. This is happening less because retailers are getting better at keeping accurate count of how many products they have. When you sell tens of thousands of dollars a month though, it does happen sometimes!
If this happens, here is what I suggest you do: (1) immediately go back to the retailer's website and see if the item is back in stock already; (2) if it's not, contact the retailer and ask when it will be back in stock; (3) if it will take too long to get back into stock, find the item on another website and buy it from there; and (4) if all else fails, find another similar item and ask the customer if they want that one instead. You'll be surprised how many customers are willing to take a similar item instead.
How To Make Money When Your Orders Get Cancelled
Since the retailer screwed up here, they will very often give you a discount on a future order to make it up to you! You should call in or chat in and ask them what happened. When they tell you the order was cancelled, ask if you can be compensated for you inconvenience. Websites like Walmart, Home Depot and even Amazon will many times give you some sort of discount for your trouble. You can then use that discount on a future order!
This same method works if the item was delivered late. Just contact the retailer and they'll give you a discount on the order! I've made thousands of extra dollars by taking advantage of these discounts!
Conclusion
So there you go. There's the simple way to make some extra cash when your retailer screws up. Don't dismiss this tactic. It really works well! But now I want to hear from you. Have you ever had an experience like this? Has a retailer ever compensated you somehow when they screwed up? Leave a comment down below and let me know!