Here you will find all the information you need to be able to react skilfully to requests regarding changes to subscriptions and installment payments from your customers.

1. Change debit amount

If you change the price of a product with ongoing subscription and installment payments, then this price change only affects new purchases. The old price still applies to existing orders.

Therefore, if a customer has a subscription with you and you subsequently lower the price for the subscription, your customer will continue to pay the old, more expensive price for the subscription. If you later increase the price, all existing subscription customers will pay the old price, in this case the lower one.

You can also change existing installment or subscription prices – there are two options for this:

Option 1:

Price change through the upgrade or downgrade function

Here you make an upgrade or downgrade offer to an existing subscription or installment customer. If your customer takes advantage of the offer, they can use it to update their installment prices. Click here to access the guide on upgrades and downgrades.

Option 2:

Refund of the order and subsequent new purchase

Here the installment payment has to be interrupted by giving a refund as a vendor. Afterwards, change the price of your product as desired. Finally, your customer must reorder the product with the updated price.

Step-by-step guide: Give a refund

1. In the vendor view, go to Reports > Transactions.
2. Click on the magnifying glass icon of the affected transaction in order to view the transaction details.
3. Scroll down to the field Transactions and click on the button Refund for the relevant transaction.

The refund is now requested in our system. Digistore24 will initiate the refund after review.

Please note:

• The maximum refund period of 60 days must not be exceeded. From a technical point of view, no refund is possible after this period.
• Refunds are only made via the same payment method used for the original purchase.
• The purchase account must be the same as the refund account.
• The refund may take 10 working days by bank transfer. For security reasons, it is not carried out immediately.
• For refunds via direct debit, the customer’s address is required for the sake of security if the customer address was not given on the order form. This must be entered via the so-called proof link. The customer automatically receives an email from the system with the so-called proof link.
• Proof of identity is required for refunds over 200 €. This must also be done via the so-called proof link with a scan of photo ID. It is possible that the address will also be requested if this was not specified during the order process.

2. Change payment method

Your customer can easily change the payment method (e.g. PayPal, direct debit, credit card, advance payment) for a product via the order confirmation page. They will receive the link to this page by email after the purchase. On the order confirmation page, there is the option Change payment method.

How to get to the order confirmation if you want to send it to the customer again:

1. In the vendor view, go to Reports > Transactions.
2. Search for the order using the customer’s last name, email address or order ID.
3. Under Actions, click on the paper icon with the green tick
4. on the left side of the order. This will take you to the order confirmation page.
5. Copy the link to the order confirmation page and send it to your customer with the message that they need to click on the Change payment method button.

Note:
Alternatively, you can click on the magnifying glass under Reports > Transactions and then on the next page click on the blue button labeled Send conformation email under the section Journal. This will send a new order confirmation email including a link to the order confirmation page.

3. Change payment plan

An example of changing the payment plan may involve switching from a yearly payment to a quarterly or monthly payment. The different payment plans also often have different prices.

Here, upgrading to the same product is the easiest way to make subsequent changes to the payment plan. The customer then simply chooses another payment plan during the upgrade. You as a vendor must send your customer the link to your product’s order form.

Important
The method of choice is the upgrade because it will take effect immediately – downgrades will not be active until the next payment cycle.

Step-by-step guide

1. First you have to set up an upgrade.
2. Make sure you place the relevant product in the Upgrade from column and also select it in the field Product to sell.

   

3. After saving, you will see the so-called upgrade order URL in the upgrade settings. Copy this URL – it will be modified in the next step.
4. The upgrade order URL still has to be personalized with the customer’s order ID. To do this, in the vendor view go to Reports > Transactions.
5. Search for the relevant order, either using the customer’s last name or their email address. If entered correctly, the results will then be displayed.
6. Once you have found the corresponding transaction, please copy the combination of numbers and letters from the Order ID column and paste it into the upgrade order URL of the upgrade that you have just created – this combination should replace the placeholder ORDER ID.
7. Send this upgrade order URL, personalized with the order ID, to your customer. Your customer can then use this to change their payment plan.

4. Your most important questions regarding subscriptions and installment payments

Do subscriptions and installment payments continue even if the order form is deleted or the product is deactivated?

If you deactivate the product, the subscriptions and installment payments will not continue. However, if you only delete the order form, this has no effect on subscription and installment payments.

What happens if I upgrade an active installment/one-time payment?

When you upgrade from an instalment (if the buyer cannot cancel) or one-time payment, the amount from the pre-order will be credited to the next order.