Partial Refunds FAQ

To help improve customer experience while allowing merchants to retain partial payments of a given sale, starting July 30, 2019 4:00PM Pacific Time, orders with refund requests may be eligible for partial refunds. For refunds requested by customers after July 30, 2019 4:00PM Pacific Time, the corresponding orders may be eligible for partial refunds. We’ve created this FAQ to share more details about partial refunds with merchants:

1. How is the partial refund calculated?

Wish may determine a partial refund is the best course of action in the interest of both the merchant and the customer. The percentage of partial refunds varies for each order and may be evaluated based on different refund reasons. This percentage is calculated at Wish’s sole discretion in order to optimize the customer experience. Not all orders are eligible for partial refunds. Wish may still decide to issue a full refund to optimize the customer experience. 

2. Where can I view the partial refund amounts?

Merchants can view refund amounts (including partial refund amounts) via Merchant Dashboard and/or API:

On the Merchant Dashboard, merchants can view (partial) refund amounts and partial refund percentage in the Refund details section of the Orders > History > Order details page.

For API users, merchants can view (partial) refund amounts via the Order GET pathways:

• /api/v3/orders/{id}

The order API get calls will return each refund event with refund time, refund amount, merchant responsible amount and refund reason.

3. How does Partial Refunds benefit merchants and customers?

Issuing partial refunds allows merchants to retain partial payments of a particular sale, rather than issuing 100% of the refunds and losing all revenue of that sale. For customers requesting refunds for various reasons, partial refunds aim to address and correspond to the specific refund reasons provided by the customer, enhancing customer experience.

4. How many partial refunds can there be for a single order?

There can be up to two partial refunds for each order, adding up to 100% of the total order value. If the refunds are disputable per the Wish Refund Policy, merchants will need to dispute each of the two partial refunds individually.

Note that in the event a quantity-based refund occurs first, Wish will not issue a percentage-based partial refund as the second refund.

5. Can merchants still report potentially fraudulent users in the context of partial refund?

Merchants can report fraudulent users similarly to how they report normally for fraudulent users.

6. What would be a specific example of partial refunds?

Let’s take the refund reason “shipping taking too long” provided by the customers as an example.

Example 1

• On August 1, a customer purchased a merchant’s product for a total order value of $8.
• On September 4, the customer still hasn’t received the item and decides to reach out to request a refund, citing that the shipping is taking too long. To address this particular refund reason provided by the customer, Wish issues a partial refund of $3 to the customer (37.5% partially refunded), as such the merchant is required to issue a refund of $3 for this order.
• On September 8, the customer does receive their order and is satisfied with its quality, and decides to keep it without requesting any further refunds.
• In this example, the merchants will be required to issue a partial refund of $3 but still receive payments for the remainder of the order value accordingly (in this case, $5). Before partial refunds were supported, for refunds requested before July 30, 2019 4:00PM Pacific Time, the merchant would have been responsible for 100% of the refund cost, in this case, the total of $8.

Example 2

• On August 1, a customer purchased a merchant’s product for a total order value of $8.
• On September 4, the customer still hasn’t received the item and decides to reach out to request a refund, citing that the shipping is taking too long. To address this particular refund reason provided by the customer, Wish issues a partial refund of $3 to the customer (37.5% partially refunded), as such the merchant is required to issue a refund of $3 for this order.
• On September 21, the customer still hasn’t received the item and decides to ask for a full refund. The customer requests a second refund of $5, i.e. the remainder of the order value.
• In this example, the merchant will be required to issue a second refund for $5 as well. This is the second partial refund issued by the merchant in this example.
• As noted above, there can be up to two partial refunds for each order, adding up to 100% of the total order value.