Cohort Refund Rate

The Cohort Refund Rate report is a tool to measure refunds week over week.

To access the Cohort Refund Rate report go to your Dashboard and click the “Cohort Refund Rate” sub tab:

Here, you will see the report which details the refund rate of a specific set of buyers week over week:

The oldest cohort of buyers will appear at the top. The report will allow you to view data up to the previous 12 weeks. 

In the screenshot above, there were 168 buyers the week of July 12th, 2021 with a conversion rate of .14%. In the first week after purchase the refund rate was 3.7%. Twelve weeks later the refund rate was 9.4%. This refund rate can be good or bad depending on the type of product you sell.

The youngest cohort of names will appear at the bottom. In the screenshot above, there were 55 new orders the week of September 27th with a conversion rate of .40%. The refund rate was 1.92% for the first week after these orders were placed. 

The Cohort Refund Rate report helps vendors know whether a group, or cohort of buyers, has a higher or lower refund rate than other cohorts. It also helps see any spike in refund rates week over week.

For example, in the screenshot above, there were 22 orders placed the week of September 20th. Within seven days the refund rate was already 5.26%, much higher than the refund rates in the other week ones:

This could be due to any number of things. Just one possibility is the vendor promoting the offer to a new traffic source that doesn’t respond as well to the offer as other traffic sources. 

Another possibility could be the vendor changed the offer or something within the sales funnel and buyers aren’t as happy with the changes.

It is extremely important to maintain a low refund rate. Vendors with an extremely high refund rate are at a risk of suspension or having to change their sales funnel per BuyGoods guidelines.

If your refund rate is slowly increasing consider:

1. The product you're selling was fulfilled late or not at all.
2. The product delivered was not correct (wrong size, wrong color, wrong item sent).
3. The product delivered was damaged.
4. Your customer service team was slow to respond or did not respond at all.

Identifying products with high refund rates and improving them are great ways to reduce your account's overall refund rate.

Here are some suggestions on reducing refund rates:

1. Fulfill orders promptly.
2. Make sure products are delivered in a timely manner. 
   • Notify customers as soon as a product is shipped
   • Select a reliable and fast shipping carrier
3. Make sure the correct items are shipped with each order, i.e. item shipped is of the correct SKU, color, size and quantity.
4. Maintain accurate inventory. When items are out of stock, please mark items as so in order to avoid customers purchasing an item that cannot be shipped.
5. Remove products from your store that appear to attract fraudulent transactions to reduce fraudulent refunds.

If you have any additional questions or want to brainstorm ways in which to keep refund rates low, please contact your Account Manager.