Dynamic descriptors

How does it work?

Whenever someone has made a purchase in your shop, your descriptor will show up on his statement of accounts. If you only have one online shop, you will only have a single descriptor. You select the descriptor when you become a customer at Clearhaus. It is important that you select an informative descriptor - usually, the name of the business is chosen. A standard descriptor is 22 characters.

If you have more than one online store, you should also have more than one descriptor. Your customers are going to be confused if they see a charge on their bank account from a business that they did not buy anything from.

That’s why it’s important to select a descriptor for each of your businesses - we recommend informative descriptors, preferably the name of each of the online shops.

The descriptor will be set automatically, depending on from which one of your shops the customers purchase.

Why should I use dynamic descriptors?

If a descriptor does not fit with the business, chances are that the customer will dispute the transaction - simply because he doesn’t recall having made the purchase. The more informative the descriptor, the lower the risk for receiving a dispute.

Let’s take an example. Say you have two online shops. The first one you started sells dog food and is called John’s Dog Food Company - this is also the descriptor you chose when signing up with Clearhaus. Since then, you also started a company selling clothes.

If you don’t select a new descriptor for your new business, your customers are most likely going to be confused. Imagine if a customer buying new jeans are met with “John’s Dog Food Company” on their bank statement - they most likely won’t recognise the purchase and consequently will dispute the transaction.

Instead, create a new descriptor for your new business, for example “John’s Jeans Company”. Now the customers will be able to recognise the purchase, and you will receive your money and avoid disputes and chargebacks.

You can also choose to incorporate invoice number, transaction number, or reference number as part of the descriptor. This will make it much easier for your customers to keep track of their various postings.