Can I refund more than the initial payment on an order?

[benvolio91]

Hi does anyone have any advise.

So occasionally we need to refund more than the customer has actually paid - for example our customer has returned their full order and due to an issue have agreed to pay their returns postage - meaning I need refund for the full order plus an additional £5.

As shopify only seems to allow refunds for up to the full order value - is there any work around how I could do this?

[Ash]

Hey, @benvolio91!

Ash here from the Shopify team. Thank you for posting your question in the Shopify Community Forums! 

When it comes to refunding an order, you're correct that Shopify only allows you to refund up to the full amount paid by the customer. There's no work around for refunding more than the full amount paid at this time, so if you wanted to send a customer additional funds, this would have to be done externally from Shopify. With that said, rather than sending your customers additional money to preform a return, I suggest instead sending them a return shipping label. That way you know that you're only paying for the cost of that shipping label in each case. 

If you're in the United States, then you can create and send return labels directly from your Shopify admin. If you're not in the United States, then you can purchase return labels directly through a shipping carrier or through a shipping application. Our Help Center also has a page on Return Labels where you can find more details regarding return shipping labels. 

I hope this helps, and feel free to reply back here and let me know your thoughts.

[benvolio91]

Not always that easy I am afraid - the shipping label was just an example, there are multiple reasons why we might want to give them more back.

So if my only platform is shopify there is basically no way of being able to give them back money?

[Ash]

At this time there is no way within Shopify to send a customer money directly other than a refund, which can only send up to the full amount originally paid. So you can give customers their money back for an order, but you wouldn't be able to give them more than what they sent over during a transaction on your store. Sending additional funds would need to be processed outside of Shopify. 

I'm curious to hear some additional reasons you may want to send a customer more money than the original amount paid for an order. If you'd like to reply here with a few more examples, I'll be happy to help brainstorm some ideas with you and look into possible work arounds specific to each situation. 

[nobeldesigner]

Another reason to refund more than original amount is when you're dealing with conversion rates. I'm currently needing to refund someone in Canada (I'm in US) and the conversion rate changed so when I refunded and canceled the original order it did not give her all of the money back she paid. In the Shopify help documents it says this can happen and that I should refund her the full amount she paid using the most recent conversion rate, causing me to lose money, but I don't see how this is possible when I can't refund her more than the original amount is USD.

[EWD1]

I'm only chiming in because I see that you asked for additional reasons. My situation: I'm in the US & shipped to Canada. Customer wanted a refund which we typically offer store credit but because of this certain situation, we offered her a full cash refund to keep her happy and do the right thing. I sent her a prepaid return label to send back her merchandise but she got to the post office and the label didn't work due to a customs situation. Therefore, she had to purchase a return label & from Canada to the USA, it was $17.  And I told her we refund her in full for the product she purchased & cover this $17 shipping cost.  But now I can't refund her this full amount because it is about $3 more than her original order amount which includes the original shipping cost. It's just about principle at this point (from me to her) and I want to give her full amount back. So that's a good example of why we would need to send back more than the original amount. 

I know it's still not possible to do this within Shopify which is fine! Just wanted to give a valid reason as to why this would happen. Thank you for reading! 

[Maggie01]

Hi am a customer of a store on Shopify, my issue is opposite of what's been discussed here but i couldn't get any Shopify staff to respond to me.

My complaint below 👇👇

I am a customer to a store on Shopify, am livid right now cause i didn't get what i wanted to purchase, my order was cancelled and i was refunded the less than i actually paid.

Please note i am in Africa and i purchased from a USA based store. I wouldn't be hurt if i had actually been able to purchase successfully but my order got cancelled and still i got refunded much less than was deducted from my card.

Please is there a way i can get the rest of my money, cause I shop on AliExpress and whenever i get refunds i usually get it fully down to the cents, which is why this is totally shocking to me, i got about $15 less than was deducted from my account, my order wasn't fulfilled and yet i still lose $15.

I have no idea why i was refunded $15 less on a purchase of $100.

[Neomi_av]

Hi @benvolio91 I'm Neomi from the Rise.ai app,

Have you thought about refunding through store credit/gift card?

In our experience, most customers are not satisfied with the size or color and would like to shop at your store, by offering store credit you will be able to retain the customer.

Using Rise.ai refind module you will be able to refund store credit directly through your Shopify admin and choose the amount to refund.

Read all about our refunds solution

and check out our listing page and feel free to contact me at info@rise.ai

[Steven_Wood1]

I agree this is a problem, we have many scenarios where we need to pay the customer additional monies, the classic example being return postage for a faulty / damaged item.

We've relied on sending money via PayPal but I do think Shopify Payments need to address this issue so it can be done easily from the original order back to the original payment method.