Proposal to auto-expire quotes

Lawrence

Currently when a store provides a customer with a quote, this quote never expires. It is only cleared when the cart expires months later. Thids leads some stores to manually cancel quotes which also triggers an email to the customer.

I was thinking of auto-expiring quotes, by clearing them from the cart after say 2 weeks. This would also be made clear when the customer receives the quote.

It would be good to get some feedback on if this would help, and what the time period would be. The time period would be fixed site-wide and not user configurable.

Area 51 Bricks

I would say a month would be a good amount of time... the only reason I say that much is because a lot of people want to see how much its going to cost them, and then save up $$.

Jay37

Sounds good to me. I haven't had many quotes, but when I have replied and nothing happens at the customer end I assume they have decided not to proceed but don't know how, or can't be bothered, to cancel it themselves (or even if they can), so an auto expire feature would help take the worry out of it.

Hoddie

I don't mind quotes remaining open a while but being able to update the shipping cost would be useful if a quote remains open past a point where the shipping agent changes their pricing.

Colorado Bricks

I am all for it, I think 3 days is too short and would be ok with anything between 7 and 30 days, if I have to pick one, 15 days.

CodeSoka

I think it is a great idea! I think it should be 15 days also.

Mrs Swoop

This sounds like a reasonable thing to do.

Could there be a warning email to the customer before the auto-expiry? And could there be an option to request a re-quote for the same cart (for items still available) to keep the quote active for longer? And could the store then have the option to confirm the existing quote or change it if necessary?

Colorado Bricks

I think Lawrence will not delete the cart, just the quote, so the buyer can always resubmit if necessary.

Mrs Swoop

Ok, you may be right. But if you allow the option to resubmit the same quote, then the seller may have the option to just confirm the existing quote and therefore reset the expiry date so it doesn't expire yet.

Stellar

2 weeks its good

carlptaylor

Sounds like a plan, having quotes sitting there is a little annoying if it's been a little while, postage costs may also have changed in the meantime. 2 weeks would be a good time . Could bo prompt the customer a week after receiving the quote and then a day before it expires ..

Brickingamazing

Sounds sensible to me. 2-4 weeks makes sense. A reminder email to the customer a few days before expiry would also be beneficial.

Vosblokjes

I would be happy with such a feature
Cancelling a quote after 14 days seems fine, can't imagine that a potential buyer would wait longer to make up his/her mind.

Quotes, for other things than Lego, I have had, normally only last a few days to just a few weeks.

I would also like the quote getting cancelled when all items in the quote are sold out. But that is of less need when quotes are auto cancelled after 2 weeks.

bricksinbins

Quote obviously needs to be cancelled if any item in it is no longer available. One week is enough time IMO.

White Horse Bricks

2 weeks sounds good. Longer than that and part turnover is likely to have too much affect on availability of the cart.

Vosblokjes

What I understood from Lawrence is that when an item in the quote is no longer available the buyer will get a notice of that when opening the cart for the quote, items will then be deleted from the cart and the buyer will have to request a new quote (or buy it). The earlier given quote is no longer valid at that point and is deleted.

Lawrence

To clarify, if items in a quote are no longer available, the customer can remove them, and still checkout with the existing quote. Only adding items or changing the quantity or address removes the quote

Stellar

Maybe if the weights lowers 20%+ the quote should be cancelled too, because shipping probably would be reduced.

Lawrence

This has now been implemented, quotes that are older than three weeks, where the cart has not been updated for three weeks, will automatically be removed. This does not have any effect on the contents of the cart, and the customer can request another quote.

Although there is certainly ecommerce benefits from reminding the customer that they have a quote, or that it will expire, I prefer not to nag the customer. As a user of other shopping websites, there are quite a lot of things that can be a short term monetary benefit, but annoy the customers in the long term.

Emporiosa

Thanks Lawrence! And I agree... I know the method for reminding about carts works on many buyers (based on the data out there), but myself as a buyer, I really can't stand those cart reminders from sites.

Bradbrix

Thank you Lawrence

Vosblokjes

Nice work (again) 😀

unbrickable

nice ! good update