Optimizing Refund and Cancellation Processes for Different eCommerce Platforms

Brands leveraging Shopify benefit from an automated system for handling refunds and cancellations. Fully refunded or canceled orders are systematically excluded from various reports and dashboards, such as the Sales Attribution Report and the Referred Orders Report.

In cases where a referral reward was generated but the corresponding payment is pending due to a refund or cancellation, the referral reward undergoes necessary adjustments. For fully refunded or canceled orders, the referral reward is deleted, whereas for partially refunded orders, the reward is updated to reflect the new amount.

If a refund or cancellation occurs after a referral reward has been included in a payment, a negative referral reward is generated in pending status. The platform offers the flexibility to approve or reject this negative referral reward. Upon approval, it contributes a negative amount to the payee's balance in Roster. It's important to note that the payee becomes ineligible to receive payments until achieving a positive balance. It's noteworthy that Roster never initiates withdrawals from an advocate's PayPal account.

Brands utilizing eCommerce platforms other than Shopify encounter a slightly different process. In the event of a fully refunded or canceled order that generated a referral reward, the recommendation is to reject the associated reward. If, by chance, the reward has been approved but not yet disbursed, it can be undone and subsequently rejected.

For scenarios where the reward has already been paid, a manual referral reward with a negative value can be created. This negative referral reward then serves as a debit against the advocate's balance, requiring offsetting by positive referral rewards before the advocate qualifies for another payment. It's important to note that rows with a negative balance are ineligible for inclusion in a payment batch.

Optimizing these processes ensures a streamlined approach to managing refunds and cancellations, contributing to a more efficient and transparent referral reward system for eCommerce brands.