While you focus on resolving such situations, PayU can help you streamline refunds and provide a hassle-free experience to your customers. Refunds need to be quick and flow back into their source accounts. PayU processes over 4 lakh refund requests daily with a success rate of over 99%. Over 90% of these refunds are successfully processed within 30 seconds of initiation.

Here is how PayU can help businesses ramp up their refund cycle during peak sale season and improve stickiness by offering customers quick money back.

Channels offered by PayU for refund initiation

• Refund initiation via merchant dashboard: Refunds can be initiated for any transaction by clicking on the ‘send refund’ button next to the transaction on the merchant dashboard.
• Refund initiation in bulk through files: Businesses can issue refunds in bulk using a .xlsx, .xls or .csvfile. Once the file is uploaded, the details are picked up within 60 minutes for refund processing.
• Refund initiation via APIs: Businesses can integrate with PayU’s refund APIs to initiate refunds for any transaction processed via PayU.
• Payment methods supported: Refunds are supported on all payment methods powered by PayU. Refunds are issued back to the source, which means the money is credited to the customer’s source account used for making the payment. For instance, if a transaction is performed using a credit card, the refund will be pushed to the same credit card.

Refunds can be full or partial

• Full refund: 100% of the amount paid is returned to the customer.
• Partial refund: Depending on the customer’s request, refunds can also be initiated for amounts less than the total transaction amounts. Multiple partial refunds can be made until the full amount has been refunded.

Refund processing

Once a refund is initiated, it is queued in PayU’s system for processing. After passing internal validations, the refund request is raised to the banking partners for processing. Each bank has its own process for making refunds.

Once the refund is processed successfully, money is credited to the customer’s account, and the refund status is communicated to the business via APIs, the dashboard, or webhooks.

A typical flow for card refunds looks like this:

If a refund fails at a banking partner’s end, PayU can internally retry processing it with the banking partner. This is to ensure high success rates for refunds. This retry functionality is configurable at a merchant level and is enabled for all merchants by default.

How long does it take to process a refund?

When a business initiates a refund request with PayU, it is instantly moved forward to the banking partner for processing. Depending on the bank’s processing time, it can take up to five to seven business days for the refund to reflect in the customer’s source account.

How to track refunds

Once a refund is initiated, it can be in either of these stages:

SUCCESS: This indicates that the refund has been processed successfully.

FAILURE: This indicates that the refund processing failed. No funds are deducted from the merchant’s settlement for such refunds.

IN PROGRESS: This indicates that the refund has been raised to the bank for processing.

REQUESTED: This indicates that the refund is sent to the bank for offline processing. In such cases, it takes up to five to seven business days for the credit to reflect in the customer’s account.

Businesses can track the refund status and details via the dashboard and APIs.

Here’s how refunds appear to businesses

·         Through the PayU dashboard

Businesses can see the refund requests created, their status, and other details under the ‘Refunds’ tab on the dashboard. Refunds can be filtered based on their date of initiation and refund status. You can also search for refunds with transaction IDs and download refund reports.

When you click on the transaction ID, you can see the ‘transaction details’ page, which contains payment, refund, and settlement details for that transaction.

You can find the refund details under the ‘Refund Activity’ section. You can view the refund history by clicking on the ‘view history’ button. This shows a timeline view for each refund, highlighting various stages in the refund processing lifecycle.

·         Through APIs

Merchants can also enquire about any refund status and details by integrating with refund enquiry APIs.

·        Refund communication

PayU supports webhooks or callbacks for the following events:

1. Refund status updates: Callbacks for refund status updates can be sent on a URL configured by the business. These callbacks can be configured for refund successes, failures, and all status updates.
2. ARN generation: An Acquirer Reference Number (ARN) is a unique number generated by banks for online transactions. This ARN is generated within 24-72 business hours of a successful refund. A callback for successfully uploading ARN can be made to the URL configured by the business.

How to fund your refunds

PayU does not charge any processing fees for refunds. However, transaction fees PayU charges on successful transactions are not reversed into the business’s account.

Refunds can be sourced from:

1. Daily settlements: The refund amount can be deducted from the business’s daily sales till the amount is exhausted. By default, all refunds are deducted from the business’s daily sales.
2. Overdraft account: If a business does not wish refunds to be deducted from its daily sales, PayU supports an overdraft functionality that allows the business to park additional funds for refunds with PayU. In such cases, the business needs to pre-fund its overdraft account for refund processing.
3. Combination of business’s daily settlements and an overdraft account: In cases where the business’s daily sale is insufficient, additional funds parked by the merchant in the overdraft account can be used to process refunds.

How do chargebacks differ from refunds?

A chargeback is raised by the customer to the issuing bank for many reasons, like a fraudulent transaction or unsatisfactory product or service delivery. On the other hand, refunds are initiated by the business at its customer’s request.

Initiating and processing refunds is extremely easy and fast with PayU. To learn more, read this dev guide.

The post Earn Your Customers’ Trust with PayU’s Hassle-free and Fast Refunds appeared first on PayU Blog.

Changing Landscape of Instant Refunds

Over the past decade, online shopping has rapidly caught on with Indian shoppers. People are far more comfortable with the idea of purchasing online instead of in retail stores. In fact, the number of online shoppers in India is expected to reach 500 million by 2030, which is a massive leap from 150 million in 2020.

The hesitation and scepticism that masked people’s minds about online shopping when it was initially introduced is not there anymore. Some of the major reasons behind the increase in online shopping are:

• Safety
• Competitive prices
• Ease of returns

Thus, as an online business, you can further ensure that returns are easy with speedy refunds or what we call Instant Refunds. This is the key to gaining your customers’ trust and ensuring that they keep coming back to you every time they need to make a purchase. After all, slow refunds are not only dated but also lead to customer dissatisfaction.

Here are some negative effects when you don’t process refund speedily:

• Drop in customer’s trust in the brand
• Increase in cart abandonment
• Loss of customers
• Loss of revenue

Now, these reasons are significantly negative for any and every business. So, if you are an online business aiming to maximize revenue and customer base, then clearly, Instant Refunds are the way to go. Most importantly, if you want to increase repeat transactions and customers, then processing instant refunds should definitely be a focal point for you.

Boost Your Business with PayU Instant Refunds

This is where PayU Instant Refunds comes in as a knight in shining armour for online businesses out there!

With PayU Instant Refunds, you can:

• Process round-the-clock refunds
• Offer refunds back to the source & delight them with instant payments
• Get real-time reports on the PayU dashboard
• Gain complete control to choose between normal and instant refund for every transaction

Now, these are a great combination of benefits to keep your customers happy! To add to this, PayU Instant Refunds supports 150+ payment modes and enables you to get 95% coverage on all domestic transactions so that you can make online payments to your customers with ease. To sum up refunds in a nutshell; the more instant they are, the better it is for your business.

So, what are you waiting for?

Aim for the skies because there’s no limit to your customers’ happiness

Only with PayU Instant Refunds!

FAQs

The post Move Over Noodles and Coffee, Refunds are Now Instant! appeared first on PayU Blog.

The more time refunding takes, the more apprehensive customers get about the e-commerce brand. On the other hand, if you issue those refunds instantly, this encourages them to use your platform more and builds trust.  

At PayU, we constantly work towards bringing innovative payment solutions to improve customer experiences for all kinds of businesses. We’ve revolutionised how e-commerce businesses can initiate refunds, quickly and easily even for their COD orders!  

One of our innovative products, PayU Payouts enables merchants to provide instant refunds to their customers directly in their bank accounts. Read in detail about PayU Payouts here. 

Different Ways to Initiate Instant Refunds for your COD Orders  

First and foremost, sign up on PayU. You can use any of the following 3 ways to initiate instant refunds for your COD orders: 

1. Directly from Your Dashboard – Add details of the customer such as Bank Account Number, IFSC Code, Amount and other details in the CSV file and upload it on your dashboard; initiate a refund  
2. API Integration – It is 100% developer-friendly and easy to use. Click here to view API reference 
3. “Smart Send” with Payout Links – With our new Smart Send feature, you don’t have to worry about collecting and filling bank account details of your customers yourself! You can make payouts to anyone, anytime without collecting their bank account details manually! Click here to know how “Smart Send” Works! 

How PayU Payout Works  

You can provide instant refunds to your COD customers directly into their bank accounts in 3 simple steps:   

1.Add money in your PayU Payouts account – Deposit money in your Payouts Account provided by PayU through RTGS or NEFT 

2. Add Customer’s Details – Add details of the customer such as Bank Account Number, IFSC Code, Amount and other details in the CSV file and upload it on the dashboard (as mentioned above), along with the amount to be refunded. You can add multiple accounts and save them for repeat payments in future  

3. Issue Refunds instantly in just one click! – Your customers will immediately receive payments in their bank accounts 

Reasons You Should Already Be Using PayU to Issue Refunds for Your COD Orders

1. Helps in Increasing Customer Loyalty – Customers’ trust on an e-commerce store or business increases when they receive their refunds instantly, which also results in them coming back to your site again & again. Faster refunds makes customers happy and helps in retaining them 
2. Automatic Reconciliation of payments – The payments can be automated, and you can save time spent on manual reconciliation
3. Powerful dashboard – You can add money, track and download reports through PayU dashboard 
4. Initiate Refunds even on Bank Holidays – You can process refunds for your customers 24*7
5. No limits on the number of refunds that can be carried out in a day! 

This is what our Customers Say about PayU Payouts

“We use Payouts for disbursing payments. It is easy and we are able to track & download all reports easily from the Dashboard – Pravin Patel, MD, Maayo LLP” 

Conclusion 

You have an e-commerce business and offer great support to your customers. Why not enhance their payments experience by providing them refunds instantly and make it a memorable one? Who knows your first-time customers turn into your loyal consumers! 

You can not only initiate refunds, but disburse vendor payments, employee salaries and much more with PayU Payouts. To know more about Payouts and our other payment solutions,  

The post Ecommerce Businesses: Automate COD Refunds with PayU Payouts, Win Customer Loyalty appeared first on PayU Blog.