Two of the marketplaces let a refund be raised from outside their own dashboard, so BookRouter™ offers it directly on the order: AbeBooks (as a return) and Biblio (as a refund). Alibris, Amazon and eBay keep refunds inside their own systems.
This moves real money out of your account. Every refund here is charged to your own AbeBooks or Biblio account, not to Bibliopolis. Read what the venue does with it before you send one.
Who can do it
The Issue Return/Refund button follows the same permission as refunding a website order: administrators, and any staff you have granted payments access. Everyone else can open and work the order normally but will not see the button.
Sending one
- Open the order under Sales & Customers › Marketplace Orders.
- Click Issue Return/Refund at the top of the order.
- Tick the items being refunded.
- Choose a reason. Each venue has its own list, and the reason affects how they handle it.
- Add comments if you want to. These are visible to the buyer.
- Decide whether to return the items to stock. This puts the quantity back and moves the item from Sold to For Sale, so it lists again everywhere.
- Send it.
What AbeBooks does
AbeBooks receives a return for each item, and works out the refund amount itself from what the buyer paid. Two extra choices appear:
- Process the refund immediately. The buyer is refunded straight away and your AbeBooks account is billed. Left off, the return stays open on AbeBooks for you to complete there. Some reasons, such as an item that never arrived or one accepted in error, are always processed immediately.
- Also refund the buyer's return shipping.
A return that is still open at AbeBooks shows in the order's marketplace updates card. Use Check return status on that card to bring the latest state back from AbeBooks; when a return completes, your records are updated at that point.
What Biblio does
Biblio takes either a full refund (the whole order including shipping) or a partial refund for an amount you enter, and you can add return postage. The refund comes out of your Biblio account.
Biblio processes the file on their side and does not send a confirmation back, so a successful send here means the instruction was delivered, not that Biblio has finished with it. Check your Biblio account if you need to be sure.
What happens to your records
When a refund completes in full, BookRouter marks those items Refunded on the order and removes the sale from your sales history, so your reports do not count revenue you gave back. If you ticked return to stock, the quantity goes back and the item can list again.
A partial refund leaves the sale in place, because the sale still happened. Only the amount changes, and that is settled at the venue.
Refunds are not retried automatically, unlike shipment updates. If one is not accepted you are told why, and nothing is sent until you try again.