> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cancellation Rate, BigCommerce > Cancellation Rate for BigCommerce stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Percentage of BigCommerce orders cancelled before fulfilment over 30 days. The leading indicator of operational and customer-experience problems, cancellations happen before the customer receives the product, signalling either inventory issues, fraud blocks, or buyer's-remorse from sub-optimal post-order communication. | | | | ----------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(orders WHERE status = 'Cancelled') ÷ COUNT(all orders)` over the period. Calculated as a percentage of orders created in the window. Some configurations also count `Declined` status; this card uses `Cancelled` only by default. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | n/a (rate metric). | | **Shipping** | n/a. | | **Discounts** | n/a. | | **Refunds** | Cancellations and refunds are distinct on BC. Cancellation = order voided before fulfilment; refund = order fulfilled then customer returned. Cross-reference [Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate). | | **Cancelled / voided orders** | This card *is* the cancellation view. | | **Currency** | n/a (currency-agnostic). | | **Channels / sources** | All channels contribute. Marketplaces often have higher cancellation rates ("buyer changed mind", "unpaid item"); web cancellations are typically merchant-initiated (fraud, OOS, address issue). | | **Cancellation reasons** | BC tracks reasons via the order log: customer request, payment failure, OOS, fraud detection, duplicate order, other. Pair with reason-breakdown view for diagnosis. | | **B2B Edition note** | B2B portal cancellation rates are typically \<1% because orders are pre-approved by account managers. Sudden B2B lifts may indicate a payment-terms or portal usability problem. | | **Healthy benchmarks** | \<2% (excellent), 2-4% (acceptable), 4-7% (needs attention), >7% (problem). Marketplaces typically run 5-15% due to "buyer changed mind"; web should run lower. | | **Time window** | `30D vsP` (30D vs prior 30D for trend) | | **Alert trigger** | `>3%` | | **Sentiment key** | `cancellation_rate` | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation ``` COUNT(status=Cancelled) / COUNT(_id) WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end] ``` ## Worked example A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro, 30-day window 14 Apr 26 to 14 May 26. | Channel | Orders created | Orders cancelled | Cancellation rate | Top reasons | | ------------------------------ | -------------- | ---------------- | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Stencil web (`channel_id = 1`) | 4,820 | 96 | **2.0%** | Fraud-rule rejection (38), customer request (28), duplicate order (12), OOS at fulfilment (10), other (8) | | Amazon Channel Manager | 1,140 | 142 | **12.5%** | Buyer cancelled (84), payment timeout (32), seller cancelled (16), other (10) | | eBay Channel Manager | 480 | 78 | **16.3%** | Unpaid item (52), buyer cancelled (18), seller cancelled (8) | | POS (terminal A + B) | 280 | 4 | **1.4%** | Customer changed mind in-store (3), card-decline retried successfully (1) | | B2B Portal | 92 | 0 | **0%** | All B2B orders fulfilled | | **Store-wide** | 6,812 | 320 | **4.7%** | Mixed; marketplace-driven | What's interesting: 1. **Web at 2% is healthy benchmark territory.** Within that 96 cancellations: 38 are fraud-rule rejections (good, that's the system working), 28 customer requests (manageable), 22 operational issues (duplicate, OOS, other). The actionable subset is the operational 22; investigate root causes. 2. **Amazon at 12.5% is normal-high for marketplace.** Amazon's "buyer cancelled" workflow allows easy cancellation up to ship; many buyers cancel after better-deal-found. The 32 payment-timeout cancellations are more concerning, indicates Channel Manager's Amazon-payment-confirmation flow has friction. Investigate. 3. **eBay at 16.3% is on the high end.** "Unpaid item" cancellations (52) are eBay's auction / buy-it-now mechanic where buyers commit but don't pay. Action: enable immediate-payment requirement on eBay listings; this typically halves the unpaid-item rate. 4. **POS at 1.4% is excellent.** In-store customers who reach the till usually complete; the 4 cancellations are mostly card-decline retries that succeed on second attempt. 5. **B2B at 0% is the gold standard.** Pre-approved orders from established accounts essentially never cancel. If B2B cancellations rise above 1%, there's an account-relationship or portal-usability problem. 6. **Store-wide 4.7% is dragged up by marketplace channels.** Web alone is 2%; marketplace alone is 13.4%. **Compare like-for-like**, web cancellation should be evaluated against web benchmarks (\<2.5%), marketplace against marketplace benchmarks (\<15%). Action priority order: 1. **Web cancellation root-cause audit** identify the 22 operational cancellations (duplicate, OOS, other) and fix systematically. 2. **eBay immediate-payment enforcement** flip the listing setting; cuts unpaid-item rate in half typically. 3. **Amazon payment-timeout investigation** Channel Manager's Amazon-payment flow needs review. 4. **Set per-channel cancellation alerts** for any channel exceeding its benchmark by 50%. 5. **Quarterly: review fraud-rule effectiveness** 38 web cancellations from fraud-rule are healthy if they're catching real fraud; if they're false-positives, revise rules to recover the lost orders. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Cancellation Rate | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Cancelled Over Time](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/cancelled-orders-over-time) | The trend view; this card is the rate, that card is the cancellation count over time. | | [Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate) | Cancellation = pre-fulfilment, refund = post-fulfilment. Both are revenue-loss signals; pair for the full leakage picture. | | [BC Decline Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/declined-transaction-rate) | Payment-decline rate; correlates with payment-failure cancellations. | | [Total Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/total-revenue) | The denominator context; 5% cancellation on $100k revenue is $5k of lost gross. | | [BC Channel Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate-by-channel) | Per-channel refund pattern; combined with this card gives full per-channel revenue-leakage view. | | [BC Alert Refund Rate Spike](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate-spike-alert) | The movement alert; configure analogous cancellation-rate-spike alert. | | [`shopify.cancellation_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/cancellation-rate) | Cross-platform reference. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel:** [Orders → All orders](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/orders) filter by status `Cancelled` or `Declined`, and date range. The list count divided by total orders gives the rate manually. [Analytics → Sales](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/analytics) on Pro / Enterprise plans shows order counts by status; the cancellation count is implied but not as a percentage. **Why our number may legitimately differ from BC:** | Reason | Direction | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | | **Cancelled vs Declined**. We use `Cancelled` only by default; some BC reports include `Declined`. Configure to match. | Configurable | | **Time-zone**. BC uses store time zone; we use UTC. | Boundary-day differences | | **Cancellations vs voids**. Some payment processors report "voided" while BC marks as Cancelled; the underlying state is the same. | None at BC level | | **Channel coverage**. We include all channels by default; BC may filter. | Different totals | | **Multi-currency**. Rate is currency-agnostic; no FX impact. | None | **Cross-connector reconciliation (when payment processors connected):** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`stripe.stripe_decline_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stripe/decline-rate) | Stripe declines correlate with payment-failure cancellations. | Stripe's view is gateway-side; this card is post-order-creation. | | [`paypal.pp_cancelled_rate`](/nerve-centre/paypal/pp_cancelled_rate) | PayPal cancellations should correlate with web-channel cancellation. | PayPal sees only PayPal-paid orders. | | [`amazon_sp.amazon_cancellation_rate`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amazon_cancellation_rate) | Amazon Seller Central cancellation rate; should match Amazon channel slice. | Different time-zone and refund-vs-cancellation handling. | **The cancellation-rate metric is BC-aligned with similar metrics on Shopify and Adobe Commerce; the field shape (BC's `Cancelled` status) is platform-specific but semantics equivalent.** ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`shopify.cancellation_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/cancellation-rate) * [`adobe_commerce.cancellation_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/cancellation-rate) (planned)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **My web cancellation rate is 8%, what's wrong?** Likely fraud-rule miscalibration or systemic OOS-at-checkout. Run the reason breakdown: (1) if fraud-rejection is >40% of cancellations, your fraud rules are too tight, recover real customers; (2) if OOS-at-fulfilment is >25%, your inventory sync between BC and warehouse has lag (orders accept then can't fulfil); (3) if customer-request is >40%, post-order experience is failing (no shipping confirmation, slow ship, etc.). **How is cancellation different from refund?** Cancellation = order voided before fulfilment (no money exchanged for goods, customer never received product). Refund = order fulfilled, customer received product, then returned for refund. Both are revenue-leakage but root causes are completely different. Cancellation root causes are pre-purchase and pre-fulfilment; refund root causes are product-quality, expectation-mismatch, or fulfilment-damage. **Why is my marketplace cancellation rate so high?** Marketplaces have buyer-friendly cancellation workflows. Amazon allows cancellation up to ship; eBay's "unpaid item" mechanism cancels uncomplete-payment orders automatically. **Marketplace cancellation rates of 8-15% are normal**; below 5% suggests strict listing settings (good for cancellation rate, may suppress sales). **Should I count "Declined" status as cancellation?** Configurable. Some merchants count both as cancellation; we default to `Cancelled` only. Declined orders are typically payment-rejection (fraud-rule, card-decline); they're a slightly different cohort from cancelled orders. If your fraud rules are aggressive, including Declined inflates the rate; excluding gives a cleaner customer-experience signal. **My cancellation rate dropped sharply, possible cause?** Common: (1) fraud rules loosened (catching less, allowing more orders to complete); (2) OOS-at-checkout fixed (better inventory sync); (3) marketplace-side mechanic change (Amazon tightened cancellation window); (4) ad-traffic mix shift toward higher-intent customers. Verify by reason breakdown. **Should I auto-cancel duplicate orders?** Yes for confirmed duplicates (same email, same items, same shipping, within 30 minutes). The customer almost always intended one order; the duplicate cancellation is a courtesy. Don't auto-cancel orders from the same customer hours apart, those may be intentional. **My fraud-rule rejections are high, what's the trade-off?** Tightening fraud rules reduces fraud-loss but also reduces legitimate-customer orders. The trade-off: 1% fraud rate (loss) vs 5% extra cancellation rate (lost revenue). For most stores, accepting some fraud loss to recover real-customer orders is net-positive. Audit the fraud-rejected orders monthly: how many were genuinely fraudulent vs false-positives? **My B2B cancellation rate climbed from 0% to 3%, why?** Investigate immediately. B2B cancellations are unusual; common causes: (1) credit-line / payment-terms issue (account hit credit limit, order auto-cancelled); (2) portal usability problem (B2B customers misordering then cancelling); (3) account-manager change (orders being approved that shouldn't have been). Time-sensitive issue. **Should I send a "we noticed you cancelled" email?** Yes for customer-request cancellations, no for fraud / OOS / system cancellations. The customer-request email asks "what went wrong?" and offers a small incentive (5% off) to retry. Conversion of these emails is typically 8-15%, recovering meaningful revenue. Don't send for fraud-rejected orders; that's actively counter-productive. **My "buyer changed mind" cancellations are climbing on Amazon, what changed?** Could be: (1) Amazon listing showing wrong size / colour (drives buyer regret); (2) competitor lower price appearing during the buyer's hesitation window; (3) shipping-time lengthened (Amazon-prime expectations). Audit the listings; check pricing competitiveness; verify Channel Manager fulfilment SLA. **Multi-currency: cancellations vary by currency?** Yes typically. USD orders may have different fraud-rule sensitivity than EUR. Filter by currency for region-specific cancellation patterns; especially relevant for stores serving multiple regions. **Why doesn't this card have a built-in alert?** The default `>3%` alert exists in the manifest. The threshold is configurable; some merchants set 5% (more lenient for marketplace-heavy stores), others 2% (stricter for web-only stores). Adjust under Vortex Mind → Settings → Alerts. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Cancellation Rate* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.