Marketplace - Returns, Refunds & Cancellations Activity

The Returns, Refunds & Cancellations Activity dashboard is a combination of widgets: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), focused metric tables, graphic displays of your data, data tables that can be quickly exported to a spreadsheet for further analysis.  The data displayed on the dashboard is intended to give you actionable insights into your customer behavior around item and order cancellations & refunds, as well as the value of the adjustments you make on cancelled & refunded activity. Two separate exportable data tables give you details at an order level and allow you to focus on the reasons for the adjustments.

You will see a link to this document in the heading of the dashboard, click on Dashboard Help to access the document.

KPIs

At the top of the dashboard, a selection of KPIs reflect overall sales, cancellations, refunds and related numbers of items.  A useful application of this section is to monitor the KPIs for specific cancellation or refund reasons, fraudulent cancellations or shipping issues.  You can use this section of the dashboard to focus on areas that have high cost impacts, and make improvements to your processes.

Focused Metrics

There are sections of these mini data tables on the dashboard, which you can view by clicking on the summarized cancellation & refund metrics - you will see a note in parenthesis (click on metric for...) where these are available. A dropdown view of the details will appear for the metric that you choose.  The focus areas display data for top brands cancelled, top customer refunds, monthly trends and customers with multiple cancellations or refunds in the timeframe selected in the filter.  Here you will be able to see if your activity is improving or deteriorating on a monthly trend, and identify with your teams the potential causes and process adjustments.  You will also be able to identify customers with chronic and high value adjustments, and couple that insight with the exportable data table to drill into the details.

You will be able to measure the success of your process improvements by comparing these results against the goals or expectations set for the initiative. If you hover to the right of the field names, you will see an arrow that allows an ascending/descending sort.  You can export the data in these tables, to work with it outside of the dashboard.  Do this by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the widget, choose Download and export an image or file.  The recommended file type for a spreadsheet is CSV.

Graphic Displays

There are sections of graphic displays on the dashboard.  The graphics display trends for key metrics such as the breakdown of adjustments by sales impact and customer impact; the percentage that represents the activity in each area is displayed.  There is also a graphic that shows your trend in fraudulent cancellations, including the number of customers and items impacted.  You can compare these results with the acceptable parameters in your operation. You can also set improvement goals for high impact areas and measure the success - for example, you might set a goal to reduce customer cancellations by a specific percentage each month and use the dashboard graphics to measure the improvement.

You might also measure the results of process changes, for example, changes to your fulfillment process might impact adjustments favorably or unfavorably. Graphics will often tell a story about your business or operations that is not obvious when looking only at metrics.  Look for trends in the data, and which metrics seem to impact the others.  You can make more informed decisions about your business when you combine what your data is telling you with the knowledge you have about influencing factors such as specific brand promotions.

Exporting the Data Tables

The data tables at the bottom of the dashboard are granular listings of what is represented in the dashboard.  The tables will react to filters set as you are viewing the dashboard, so you are able to see more details about what is impacting the results.  There may be times when you want to look at this data, filtered or not, in a spreadsheet or image.  By left-clicking on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the table widget, choose Download and export an image or file.  The recommended file type for a spreadsheet is CSV.  This functionality allows you to shape and model your data for reporting, and importantly to inform your business decisions.