When a customer contacts a merchant wishing for a refund on an order that was placed through Violet, the merchant will be able to easily service that request without leaving their ecommerce platform. All that is required is to follow the standard refund process for an order in your ecommerce platform, with the end goal of changing the state of that order to “refunded”. Violet will take it from there.

All that is required by the merchant is to mark the order refunded in their e-commerce platform, the merchant does not need to initiate any funds transfers, even if they would usually do that for a native order.

As a part of the standard Violet e-commerce integration, Violet subscribes to webhook notifications for refunds, processing each when they are received. So once the merchant has marked the order as refunded, Violet will process that refund, reversing all funds transferred to the merchant and channel and returning the funds to the shopper’s payment method. Funds should appear on the shopper’s card within 5-10 business days.

Special Platform Specific Considerations

Certain e-commerce platforms have special limitations and considerations that impact and alter the basic Violet returns and refund flow.

Shopify

While Shopify supports the normal Violet Refund process there is one very important call out for when you are canceling a Violet order.

In the cancellation dialogue (seen below) you must select Refund Payments NOW. This is option is typically selected by default but this must be selected as that is what triggers the normal Violet Refund process to make sure your shopper is properly refunded when an order is canceled.

Note the “Manual” link indicating that no funds will actually be transferred from you to the shopper directly. Violet will take care of this as part of the normal flow seen here

cancel-order.png

Ecwid

The Ecwid platform, as a rule, does not allow order placed via API, as Violet does, to be refunded. This means that for Violet Orders, the Ecwid interface refund button that can be used to start a refund is not able to be used.

Instead, simply mark any Violet orders as cancelled when the order is refunded and Violet will treat it as a refund.

Sales Force Commerce Cloud

As there is no concept of refunds in both the OCAPI and SCAPI, Violet is unable to be notified of refunds or access any refund data. As a temporary workaround, you will need to perform one of the following steps.

Option 1: Mark Order as Cancelled This option requires the least amount of effort. Simply mark any Violet orders as cancelled when the order is refunded and Violet will treat it as a refund.

Option 2: Notify Violet of Refunds This option will likely require the involvement of your engineering team. When a refund occurs, you will need to send information about the refund to Violet so that it can process the refund accordingly. If you choose this option, the integration documentation will be shared with you by Violet or the channel that onboarded you.

Whats Next Violet will begin integrating with the order management systems that you connect to your Salesforce Commerce Cloud stores. Once we have an integration with the OMS you use you will be able to remove/skip the above fallback options as Violet will be able to discover refunds automatically.

Wix

The below ONLY applies to orders placed before 2024-04-22. All orders placed afterward can be refunded via the standard process.

See our release notes for more details.

The Order API on the WIX platform is currently in its early stages and comes with certain limitations concerning order refunds.

Consequently, it is essential to carefully follow these specifics steps to ensure a comprehensive and successful refund for your customers.

Unfulfilled Order

In the event that an order is still undergoing processing and has not yet been shipped, initiating a refund can be accomplished by canceling the order.

Step 1: Go to Actions Cancel Action

Step 2: Cancel Order Cancel Order

Step 2.5: Confirm Cancel Cancel Order

Previously Fulfilled Order

Once an order has been dispatched, it is necessary to unfulfill it before you can proceed with initiating a refund by canceling the order.

Step 1: Go to Actions Unfulfill Action

Step 2: Unfulfill Order As soon as you select the option Mark as fulfilled, the order status will promptly be updated to UNFULFILLED. You can see this below: Unfulfilled Status

Step 3: Follow Steps from Unfulfilled Order above.

Violet Refund and Return Flow

See the below diagram for how Violet handles the refund and return flows