At a glance
Refund rate decomposed by channel_id over the trailing 30 days, with prior-30-day comparison. Different channels have structurally different refund profiles: Amazon’s A-Z claim system makes refund rates higher than web; B2B portal’s relationship-based selling makes refunds rare; POS in-store returns are walk-up-only and rarely come back through this metric. Aggregate refund rate hides the channel that’s actually problematic.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US fashion brand on BigCommerce Pro. Snapshot for 1 Apr to 30 Apr 26 vs 1 Mar to 31 Mar 26.
What’s interesting:
- Amazon at 12.1% (+2.3pp) fires the alert under the marketplace-cohort threshold of 10%. This is the actionable signal. Amazon refund rate above 10% triggers concern about A-Z claim escalation; sustained above 12% raises seller-rating risk.
- The headline 5.6% looks healthy and would not fire any alert. This is exactly why per-channel decomposition matters: aggregate rates hide channel-specific problems. Amazon’s 138 refunds (32% of total refunds despite 15% of orders) is the concentration the headline obscures.
- Diagnostic sequence: (a) Decompose Amazon refunds by SKU, find the SKU dominating, (b) check Amazon Seller Central for A-Z claim reasons (fit, quality, late shipment), (c) check whether Channel Manager ship-time has slipped (late shipments cause A-Z claims at 5x normal rate). In this case 87 of 138 Amazon refunds were on a single SKU “summer dress, M, blue”, with sizing complaints, identical to a known DTC issue.
- The DTC channel rate (4.8%) is structurally lower than Amazon (12%) for the same SKU. Amazon’s customer base trends toward higher refund rates (lower brand loyalty, easier returns) and the A-Z claim escalation pathway. A 2-3x Amazon-vs-web refund rate gap is the BC-ecosystem norm, not a problem.
- B2B portal at 1.3% is healthy. B2B refunds are rare because customers test product before placing PO; when they happen, they tend to be large credit memos rather than small returns. Watch for B2B drift above 3%, that’s an account-management problem, not an operational one.
- Apply cohort thresholds. Web 8%, marketplace 10-12%, B2B 3%, POS 2%; never use a single threshold across cohorts.
- For Amazon spikes specifically, decompose by SKU first. One SKU dominating = quality / sizing issue.
- For SKUs visible in Amazon refunds, check DTC web for the same SKU, often the issue is product-wide and Amazon is the leading indicator due to harsher buyer base.
- For B2B drift, contact the affected wholesale customer directly rather than relying on operational fix; B2B refunds are relationship signals.
- Pair with BC Refunded Products for SKU-level decomposition.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Orders → All orders, filter byStatus = Refunded, then by individual channel. BC does not natively compute per-channel refund rate; the closest is Reports → Refund Report (Plus / Pro / Enterprise) which shows refunds but not per-channel rate. For per-marketplace refunds: Channel Manager → individual marketplace → Refunds tab.
Why our channel refund rate may differ from BC / marketplace view:
Cross-connector reconciliation (when payment processors are connected):
The per-channel refund rate view is BC-aligned with similar cards on Shopify (per
source_name) and Adobe Commerce (per store_id); merchant-facing semantics are equivalent.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My Amazon refund rate is 12% but my web is 5%. Is Amazon a worse market for my brand? Probably not. Amazon’s customer base structurally returns more (lower brand loyalty, easier returns process via A-Z claims). A 2-3x Amazon-vs-web refund rate is the BC-ecosystem norm. Be concerned only when Amazon exceeds 12-15% or when the gap widens beyond 3x your web rate. Why is my B2B portal at 1.3% so much lower than DTC? B2B customers test product before placing PO; refunds when they happen are large credit memos rather than small returns. Plus B2B sales reps build relationships that resolve issues before they become refunds. Watch for B2B drift above 3%, that’s an account-management problem. The alert fired on Amazon at 10.5% but my web is fine. What’s the cause likely? Most common: an Amazon-specific SKU has a quality / sizing issue that DTC web doesn’t see (because the SKU is Amazon-only or the listing copy is different on Amazon). Decompose by SKU. Second most common: late shipments are causing A-Z claims; cross-reference BC Channel Fulfilment Rate for the Amazon channel. My POS shows 1.1% refund rate but our store has a “no refund except for defects” policy. Why isn’t it 0%? The 1.1% likely covers (a) defective returns, (b) post-purchase staff adjustments (price corrections, sale-application after the fact), (c) employee-discount fixes. POS refund rates of 0.5-1.5% are normal even on strict-policy stores. What’s the right cohort threshold? Defaults: web 8%, marketplace 12%, B2B 3%, POS 2%. Tighten if your brand has lower-than-norm refund rates; loosen if higher. Configure under Settings → Alerts → Channel cohort. My headline refund rate is 5.6% but Amazon alone is 12%. Should the headline alarm at 5.6%? No, that’s a healthy aggregate. The whole point of per-channel decomposition is catching channel-specific issues before they degrade the headline. The cohort-based per-channel alert fires at 10% on Amazon (correctly catching the issue) without alerting on the healthy aggregate. Should this card include cancelled orders? No. Cancellations happen pre-fulfilment and are operationally distinct from refunds. Including them would inflate the rate without reflecting customer dissatisfaction. My B2B portal credit memo workflow doesn’t writerefund transactions; will the rate read 0%?
Probably yes. We detect credit memos via the BC credit_memo field (Enterprise plan only). For Pro and below, B2B credit memos may not flow into refund counting. Configure under Settings → Refund detection if your B2B workflow uses non-standard fields.
My marketplace refunds spiked but my customer service queue is normal. Where are the refunds coming from?
Likely auto-refunds from the marketplace (Amazon A-Z claims, eBay buyer-protection, Walmart returns). These resolve without involving your customer service team but appear here. Check Amazon Seller Central → A-Z Claims for the recent spike.
Why exclude Incomplete and Cancelled from the denominator?
Because including them would understate the rate (the denominator inflates with non-fulfilled orders that never had a chance to refund). Including them makes the metric meaningless across stores with different abandonment / cancellation patterns.