Order Status - pending vs. complete

I am trying to understand how the order status pending differs from complete. Our online store has orders showing pending for over a month and we are having a difficult time trying to reconcile what is transactions are actually final. What is the difference between the two statuses and why would the pending status be displaying for so long?

We use only the PayPal plugin.

Thank you ahead of time.

Hello Mark,

If you are using PayPal payment plugin for your online store, then:

1. An order is marked as Complete only after customer went to PayPal, paid and complete order
2. If customer have still not paid, then order status is still pending.

Hope that my answer is clear.
Sincerely, Giang

Fair enough, but how can it be that a customer can place an order with paypal over a month ago and it continue to show pending?

Hi Mark,
Because customer has never paid for that order so it is still pending.
Sincerely, Giang

Hello, I am testing my store to launch and found this issue too. Checkout took me to PayPal but I canceled my order using the link on the bottom of the PayPal checkout page (cancel and return to...) and it took me back to my site with the message:
Order Canceled
You have canceled your order!

So should it not say canceled in my store?

I can see if they just don't pay and leave PayPal by closing the window, etc., but it plainly said Order Canceled in big bold text on my site. I hope this can be adjusted to not stay pending in the dashboard.

Thanks

Hello Dave,

This is not too important improvement feature but I will consider to do it in the future.

Sincerely, Giang

Could you explain why this is not important? Just curious why one message says canceled and the user canceled the order but you chose to make it pending?

I am just trying to understand the logic. I have seen something like this before.

Thank you