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Case study 06 - WordPress · WooCommerce

PayPal failing.
Subscription issues.
We fixed both.

An agency brought us in to resolve intermittent PayPal failures on GSN's Retail website. When a separate duplicate subscription payment issue appeared later, the same agency came back to us. After resolving both problems, we took over support for the platform for a period of time.

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First issue
1 in 10
Retail payments failing
Second issue
Duplicate
Subscription payments taken
Agency relationship
Protected
Support transferred on good terms
Next step
Handover
Platform taken over
The situation

Two separate failures. The same agency came back to us for both.

GSN operated separate Retail and Wholesale subscription websites through one WordPress multisite setup. The first time we became involved, an agency asked us to investigate intermittent PayPal failures affecting the Retail site.

The Wholesale journey was working on the same multisite and server, while around one in ten Retail transactions failed. That gave us a working comparison and helped narrow the issue to the Retail PayPal flow rather than the wider hosting setup.

Later, the agency returned with a different and more serious problem. Subscription customers were being charged twice. This was not a continuation of the PayPal fault. It was a separate issue within the subscription process that needed its own investigation and fix.

Why we were needed
✗Intermittent PayPal failures affecting around 1 in 10 Retail transactions
✗Retail payments failing while the Wholesale journey continued to work
✗Duplicate subscription payments being taken from customers
✗Subscription logic and renewal dates behaving incorrectly
✗Plugin behaviour causing problems within the recurring payment flow
“
Their expertise got to the root cause quickly and fixed our original setup - the one we feared we would have to rebuild. They stabilised the platform, kept us trading, and removed a huge amount of stress.
NR
Chief Growth Officer
GSN
Client
GSN
GSN
Platform WordPress multisite
Commerce WooCommerce
First Rescue PayPal failures
Second Rescue Subscription Duplication
Engagement Agency help and support
Services Delivered
✓Retail and Wholesale payment journeys compared
✓PayPal configuration, credentials and tokens reviewed
✓API requests, responses, webhooks and logs traced
✓Duplicate subscription payment flow investigated
✓Subscription logic, payment dates and plugin behaviour corrected
✓Testing, deployment and a period of ongoing support
The full timeline

What happened, and when.

The PayPal failures and duplicate subscription payments were not the same problem. They happened at different times, had different causes and each needed to be traced through its own payment journey.

01 · The first call
An agency asks us to investigate PayPal failures
Around one in ten Retail transactions were failing intermittently, while the Wholesale site continued processing payments on the same multisite and server.
02 · PayPal resolved
The working Wholesale flow shows us where to look
We compared both sites, reviewed PayPal configuration, reconnected the API credentials and traced requests, responses, webhooks, logs and order creation until the Retail fault was isolated and corrected.
03 · The agency returns
Subscription customers begin being charged twice
This was a new issue, separate from the earlier PayPal failure. The duplicate charges pointed to the recurring subscription process and required a fresh investigation.
04 · Duplicate payments stopped
04 · Duplicate payments stopped The subscription journey is traced and corrected
We investigated subscription logic, renewal dates, plugin behaviour and the payment flow, then tested the correction before it was released to the live platform.
05 · Platform support taken over
The rescue work becomes a wider support relationship
Following the second fix, we supported the WooCommerce platform across subscription logic, plugin behaviour, testing and live deployments. That support engagement has since ended.
1 in 10
Retail payments failing
2 x
subscription charges taken
2
separate payment fixes
1
agency that came back
The second call was not a repeat of the first issue. It was a separate subscription fault, brought back to the same team because the agency trusted us to investigate it properly.
What was at stake
✗Around 1 in 10 Retail PayPal transactions failing
✗Subscription customers being charged twice
✗Recurring revenue and customer trust at risk
✗Two separate payment issues affecting the same platform
✓PayPal failures traced and resolved
✓Duplicate subscription payments stopped
✓Subscription logic and payment dates corrected
✓Technical responsibility transferred smoothly on good terms
Complex payment issues rarely need guesswork. They need tracing properly.
We compare what works, follow the full transaction journey and change only what the evidence points to.
Need critical help?
The first rescue

The working site gave us the answer.

Because Retail and Wholesale shared the same WordPress multisite and server, the working Wholesale journey became the control point for the investigation.

We reviewed the PayPal plugin configuration, reconnected PayPal using new API credentials and tokens, added debugging across the full payment journey and checked API requests, responses, webhooks, WooCommerce logs and order creation.

That side-by-side comparison allowed us to isolate the fault to the Retail PayPal flow without changing the parts of the multisite that were already working.

Two serious payment issues resolved without replacing the platform.

The agency had a technical team it could bring in when the payment journeys became too complex to diagnose internally. GSN kept the existing WordPress and WooCommerce platform, the immediate customer-impacting problems were corrected and support was handed to a team that already understood the setup. That support relationship has since concluded.

The second rescue

Duplicate payments needed a different fix.

When the agency returned, the problem was no longer failed PayPal transactions. Subscription customers were being charged twice.

We treated it as a completely separate fault and traced the recurring payment process across subscription logic, renewal dates and plugin behaviour. The correction was tested before deployment to reduce the risk of further customer charges.

After the duplicate payment issue was resolved, we took over wider support for the platform for a period of time, covering WooCommerce, subscriptions, testing and live releases.

Ongoing retainer includes
✓Priority scheduling and reserved monthly capacity
✓WordPress core, plugin and theme updates
✓Security fixes and controlled releases
✓Bug fixes, plugin conflicts and performance improvements
✓Ongoing development and new features
Platform: WordPress & WooCommerce View pricing →
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Payments failing and your reputation on the line?

Let us help. We trace the full customer journey, compare what works against what does not and find the actual cause before changing the platform.

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