Frequently asked questions
Straight answers for Shopify merchants.
Product, workflow, checkout, measurement, privacy, and operations explained without hiding important limits.
What does BuyWhen do?
BuyWhen captures the exact condition blocking a Shopify purchase, qualifies whether that demand is actionable, lets the merchant accept, counter, wait, or decline, and reopens approved terms through Shopify checkout.
What is the Live Order Book?
It is the merchant's tenant-scoped queue of conditional purchase requests, including product context, potential value, commitment, confidence, expiry, ownership, evidence, and decision history.
Which request types are supported?
Price, exact stock or variant, need-by delivery date, purchase-blocking question, bundle, and structured custom or quote requests.
Is BuyWhen a public bidding marketplace?
No. Requests and offers remain private between the shopper and the merchant. BuyWhen does not publish bids or create cross-merchant exchanges.
Does submitting a request reserve inventory?
No, unless the merchant explicitly communicates a time-bounded reservation. Otherwise inventory is checked again before checkout.
Can BuyWhen charge a shopper later automatically?
No. BuyWhen does not silently retain and charge an ordinary card. The shopper explicitly reviews terms and completes payment in Shopify checkout.
How are price requests controlled?
Manual approval is the default. A decision checks exact currency, cost and margin evidence, inventory, quantity, identity, discount compatibility, market, and active hard rules.
What happens when data is unknown?
The workflow fails closed: it stays waiting, requires manual review, or offers a safe next action instead of creating a commercial promise.
How long do private offers last?
Each offer has an explicit expiry chosen under merchant policy. It can also be revoked, and every open performs live revalidation.
How does checkout work?
Public-price terms can use a Shopify Storefront Cart. Approved private-price terms can use a Shopify Draft Order. Taxes, shipping, duties, and payment stay in Shopify.
How is revenue attributed?
A durable evidence chain links the request, decision, offer, checkout, and paid order. Refunds and cancellations append negative corrections instead of erasing history.
Does BuyWhen measure incrementality?
It supports deterministic treatment and holdout assignment, attribution windows, minimum-sample warnings, and separate treatment and holdout reporting. Attributed sales are never automatically labelled incremental.
What customer data is collected?
Only data needed for the enabled request and its lifecycle, such as product context, condition, contact channel, consent, and limited order evidence. Direct identifiers are encrypted.
Is marketing consent required?
No. Transactional permission for request updates and optional marketing consent are separate. Marketing is never preselected.
What languages are supported?
English, French, German, and Spanish are supported across contracted customer-facing request, offer, portal, email, and checkout-validation surfaces.
Can teams use roles and SSO?
Yes. BuyWhen includes merchant roles, store invitations, organization views, and an OIDC SSO foundation with domain enforcement and audited sessions.
What happens after uninstall?
Processing stops, sessions are removed, active offers are revoked, and retention-aware cleanup begins while required billing and audit evidence follows documented policy.
Which external integrations are available?
The product includes tested provider contracts and guarded adapters. Paid external providers remain visibly Coming soon until credentials, budgets, and provider-specific acceptance are complete.