Why so many live orders never get paid
You show a product, the comments pour in, and after the live you have hundreds of orders. A week later, a third of them are still unpaid. Sellers who write orders down by hand and chase every customer in private messages often end up with 30–50 % of orders unpaid.
The reason is simple. When an order is created by hand, the customer never goes through a checkout: nothing makes them finish the purchase, nobody reminds them to pay, and nothing happens if they don't. Our biggest sellers, who run the whole process through Streamo, keep unpaid orders at 1–3 %. This is how they do it.
Before the live: start a conversation
The biggest sellers send a bulk message, with photos and a link, before every live, every new collection and every batch of new Reels. Customers find out, come to the live and buy again.
One rule to keep in mind: Messenger and Instagram only let a page message customers who have been in touch with it recently. So ask your customers, in every live and every post, to write to you on Messenger, whether it's an order or just a "hi". The more customers talk to you, the more people your messages reach. More in our guide to bulk messages.
During the live: the selling word and codes
Customers comment the selling word and a product code, for example "sold 1001", and the product lands in their cart on its own. Nobody types orders by hand. If your customers are used to a particular word, keep it: with the selling word add-on you choose your own.
One tip: don't make the selling word part of your product codes. If the word is "ref", give a product the code 244, not REF244, or customers would have to write "ref REF244". Anyone who writes an order differently can still be added by hand on the live screen. For the whole live workflow, see our step-by-step guide.
After the live: customers finish on their own
You can keep checkout closed while you go on selling with videos and Reels, and open it when you're ready: it's a single switch on the Orders page. Then send everyone the link to their cart in one bulk message.
The customer fills in the address, picks delivery and payment, and that's it. No more asking for addresses one by one. Their details are saved, so their next purchase is even faster.
Reminders and blocking
Customers who don't pay get automatic reminders: by default every 24 hours, at most three times, and you can change both. If you turn on automatic blocking, a customer who still doesn't pay or finish the cart can't order again until you unblock them.
Our biggest sellers often prefer to do it by hand. They keep orders open for three to five days after the live, then block whoever hasn't paid: in Customers they click the customer's status and choose "Blocked" (or select several customers at once), or they do it right from the conversation. Blocking cancels the customer's carts and puts the stock back. Little by little, you're left with the customers who pay.
Always know who paid
- Online payment at checkout. Cards and the payment methods your customers use locally. The order is marked paid the moment the payment goes through.
- Bank transfer. Connect your bank's payment notifications. When a transfer arrives with the order number in its description, the order is marked paid automatically. The payment QR code in the checkout and in the order email fills in the account, the amount and the order number for the customer.
- Cash on delivery. Paid when the parcel is delivered.
Shipping without copying addresses
With the carriers we're connected to, you print the labels for all orders at once, with the addresses customers entered themselves. Parcels that come back are detected automatically, and a customer who repeatedly doesn't pick up can be blocked automatically too.
Ads that lead to Messenger
Product videos and Reels work best as ads. Send people to Messenger with the "Send message" button: every customer arrives as a conversation, so you can write to them again later. In the ad's message template, add the product code as a quick question. The customer taps it and the product is in their cart.
Connect your Facebook pixel in Settings → Integrations. Streamo sends Facebook the visits and purchases from the checkout and the online shop, including orders that came from lives and Messenger, so Facebook learns who actually buys and shows your ads to people like them.
Sold out? Keep the sale
Turn on the automatic replies for sold-out products and the restock notification in Settings → Messages & reminders. Customers who ask for a sold-out product can go on a waiting list and are told automatically as soon as it's back in stock.
Switching from working by hand
You don't need to delete the orders you created by hand. Close them in bulk instead: "Order completed" for the ones you've already handled, "Order canceled" for those that won't be paid, with emails to customers turned off and without returning stock. That way, customers who have already paid you won't get payment reminders.
Our clients tell us that once they switch, they save up to 80 % of the time they used to spend completing orders: what took several days now takes one or two. That's time for what matters most, selling.
