Refund Analytics

Refund Analytics

MarginDriver currently pulls in refunds from Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Shopify (if payment and refund are processed by Shopify Payments). The MarginDriver Refund Analytics page tracks these refunds and their impact on the user's gross profit.


In addition to the Analytics page described below, MarginDriver also displays refund information in the Dashboard KPIs and Gross Profit Reports. In these instances, MarginDriver lists both the Total Refunds issued that day and the Refund Allowance that is actually applied to the day's gross profit results. An explanation of the difference between the two follows.


Total Refunds versus Refund Allowance


  • Total Refunds (Informational-Only) displays the orders and corresponding revenue issued by the seller in the selected time period. These totals are (as indicated) displayed for informational purposes only. The refunded revenue is not deducted from the summary totals (including gross profit) of the selected time period.

  • Refund Allowance (Included in the Gross Profit) displays a running 30-day average of all refunds in the last month divided by the number of orders during that same time period. This balanced and accurate daily value is applied to the gross profit results of the selected time period. Application of the Refund Allowance as opposed to Total Refunds to the gross profit is advantageous in that it distributes the refunds proportionally across a 30-day period instead of concentrating them on the days that the seller just so happened to have issued the refunds.


Refund Analytics


Refund KPIs


The metrics displayed in the four KPI tiles across the top of the page and the order/refund details displayed in the Refund Analysis section are both controlled by the menu options in the Refund Analysis section. The results in the KPI tiles will differ according to whether the user chooses to display results by Order Date (the date the original order was placed) or Refund Date (the date the refund was issued).



Refunded Orders

  • Show Order Date: The number of orders from the specified Custom Date period that have been either partially or fully refunded.
  • Show Refund Date: The number of refunds issued in the specified Custom Date period regardless of the original order date of the associated order.


Percent of Orders

  • Show Order Date: The percentage of orders from the specified Custom Date period that have been refunded to date.
  • Show Refund Date: The percentage of refunds issued to orders placed within the specified Custom Date period.


Refunded Gross Profit

  • Show Order Date: The total amount of gross profit refunded on orders placed within the Custom Date period.
  • Show Refund Date: The total amount of gross profit refunded within the Custom Date period regardless of the original order date of the associated order.


Percent of Total Gross Profit

  • Show Order Date: The percent of gross profit earned on orders placed within the Custom Date period that has been refunded to date.
  • Show Refund Date: The percent of total gross profit earned within the Custom Date period that was lost to refunds issued during that same period.


Refund Analysis



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The menu options include MarginDriver's standard Sales Channel filter and Add/Remove Metrics selection.


The Custom Dates filter can be used to filter by either the Order Date (the date the original order was placed) or Refund Date (the date the refund was issued). If the Original Orders & Refunds button (under Show) is selected, both the order and the refund detail will be displayed. If the Refunds Only button is selected, the original order detail line will be omitted.


The SKU Filter search box enables users to search for the refund history of a particular SKU number. Alternatively, clicking on the Show Top 10 button will display the refund history for the 10 SKUs with the most orders refunded within the custom date period.


Refund Detail



  • The original order detail line is displayed in black and the corresponding refund is displayed in red.
  • The refund detail line stipulates the amount of Product Revenue and Shipping Revenue that were refunded as well as the portion of that revenue that was deducted from Fees and lost in Gross Profit.
  • Product Cost in-line editing allows the user to enter any or all product cost that was salvaged through the return of the product to the seller. By default, MarginDriver assumes that $0.00 in product value was recovered. The user can edit that field directly on the page to reflect the recovered product value.


Tracking Refund Allowance


MarginDriver calculates a Refund Allowance in order to allocate revenue lost to refunds proportionally across a rolling 30-day period. Simply deducting the amount refunded on any given day from the gross profit for that day is problematic. For instance, many sellers will not issue any refunds on the weekends as the staff is off. Then they may issue a large number of refunds on Monday to catch up from the weekend.

 

In order to avoid distorting your daily gross profit results, MarginDriver calculates and applies the Refund Allowance using a running 30-day average and applying the allowance proportionally according to the number of orders issued that day.


MarginDriver calculates a new Refund Allowance each day by referencing the total amount of revenue refunded in the last 30 days on that sales channel and dividing by the number of orders month-to-date to arrive at the average dollar amount refunded per order over the past 30 days. This value is then multiplied by the number of orders for the current day to arrive at an estimated refund allowance for the current day. 


Daily Actual Orders: the number of orders on that day of the month for the selected sales channel


MTD Accumulated Orders: the total number of MTD accumulated orders for that day of the month


30-Day Accumulated Orders: the total number of orders for the previous 30 days


Daily Actual Refunds: the dollar amount of refunds actually issued that day


MTD Accumulated Actual Refunds: the dollar amount of accumulated MTD refunds


30-Day Accumulated Actual Refunds: the dollar amount of accumulated refunds from the previous 30 days


30-Day Accumulated Refund Allowance Per Order: the 30-Day Accumulated Actual Refunds divided by the 30-Day Accumulated Orders. The result is the average amount of refunded money per order over the previous 30 days. This value is multiplied by the number of orders for the current day to arrive at an estimated refund allowance for the current day.


MTD Refund Allowance Per Order: equal to the most recent daily 30-Day Accumulated Refund Allowance Per Order. As the 30-Day Accumulated Refund Allowance Per Order is calculated on a daily basis, the value becomes the new average refund allowance per for order for every day of the current month as it constitutes the most accurate and up-to-date estimate of what the final refund allowance per order will be at the end of the current month.


Daily Refund Allowance: MTD Refund Allowance Per Order multiplied by the number of orders for that day


MTD Accumulated Refund Allowance: the accumulation of the refund allowance for each day of the current month. On the last day of each month, this value will equal the total dollar amount of actual refunds issued for the month.


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