Shipping product/Credit Card charge

[asj123]

I would like to know what the time frame is to process a credit card and ship an item out for an e-business.

Once I process a card, how long do I have until the item must be shipped out to the customer?

Thanks.

[mlmorgan]

I don't think that there is an exact answer to your question, but these guidelines from Visa may help:

Deposit Time Limits:
Deposit your Visa transaction receipts within five calendar days of the
transaction date. The sooner you deposit transaction receipts with your
merchant bank, the sooner you get paid! For card-not-present transactions,
the transaction date is the ship date, not the order date. Transactions deposited
more than 30 days after the original transaction date may be charged back
to you.

Delivery of Goods and Services:

Deliver the merchandise or services to the cardholder at the time of the
transaction. Cardholders expect immediate delivery of goods and services unless
other delivery arrangements have been made. For card-not-present transactions,
cardholders should be informed of delivery method and tentative delivery
Transactions cannot be deposited until goods or services have been delivered.

Delayed Delivery
For a delayed delivery, obtain two authorizations: one for the deposit amount
and one for the balance amount. Some merchandise, such as a custom-covered
sofa, requires delivery after the transaction date. In these delayed-delivery situations,
the customer pays a deposit at the time of the transaction and agrees
pay the balance upon delivery of the merchandise or services.

Hope this helps. I am uncertian as to all of the card types rules, but I imagine that they are similar.

[dbergert]

I would like to know what the time frame is to process a credit card and ship an item out for an e-business.

Once I process a card, how long do I have until the item must be shipped out to the customer?

Thanks.

This is a better question for your processor.

but, how long does the processor keep the oustanding authorization on its system or how long does an issuer return the authorized amount back to the card holder's open-to-buy balance. I would state that you should probably ship the product within 7-10 days of the authorization. and if it is longer perform the authorization again to validation that it is still a good card with an approval, then forcing it though.

[Shift4SMS]

We tell our clients they have 2 options (and I'm not aware of any bank or processor having issues with these):

1) Transactions cannot be settled/posted/closed (or whatever term your processor uses) until the goods are shipped.

OR

2) Transactions can settled/posted/closed immediately at order time if the order will be shipped within 24 hours or 1 business day.

But you will want to confirm this with your processor. Option #1 is always our recommendation. Option #2 is not an option if backorders or shipping delays are common.