Cashfree is helping 15000+ internet businesses process faster refunds for online as well as cash on delivery payments
Cashfree announced it is working on making refunds faster and frictionless with its suite of refund solutions for online transactions. As per Cashfree’s data, while there has been a brief dip in the total number of transactions due to the lockdown, the number of refunds has risen by a whopping 20% in April and March. A significant share, expectedly, has been from businesses operating in the travel and hospitality sectors.
Delays in refunds constitute approximately 50% of total support tickets businesses register. The standard refund cycle for online payments in India has on average been 5-7 working days, sometimes much longer. This duration may vary basis mode of payment, or cause of refund – for instance, a transaction failure refund might be faster than an actual order cancellation – or technical glitches during refund. Cashfree has built a unique three-tier refund suite to help online businesses process refunds instantly.
- Cashgram for Cash on Delivery (COD) order refunds
CoD refunds take the longest as they involve the manual collection of payment details. Often, consumers do not feel comfortable sharing these details. To avoid the hassle, Cashgram helps businesses process COD refunds by sending a link, where customers can enter their preferred payment account and directly redeem the refund amount.
- Instant refunds for all online payments
Cashfree offers instant refunds to its merchants as a part of its payment gateway. Merchants can enable instant refunds to be credited back to the original source directly from their dashboards or via Cashfree’s Instant Refund API.
- Refunds on cancelled orders using Pre-authorization
Cashfree’s pre-authorization feature allows the business to place a temporary hold on some of the customer’s funds. If the order is modified or is canceled within a specific time frame (typically 7-9 days), the transaction can be marked void and the hold is lifted immediately. In addition to enabling a quick refund process, pre-authorization ensures that the business doesn’t have to pay transaction charges for cancelled and refund transactions.
Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder of Cashfree commented, “Quick refunds and transactional transparency are prerequisites to driving growth in an online economy. With our comprehensive refunds solution, we are trying to enable online businesses to deploy payments innovation to build trust and increase customer retention with faster refunds. Our suite of refund offerings covers the primary hurdles in refunds namely, cash on delivery order refunds, refunds in case of frequent cancellations and overall duration of refund cycle.”
Pharmeasy, Medlife, Nykaa, ClubFactory, ixigo, and Grofers’ Orangesomething are some of the online businesses using Cashfree’s refund solutions.
Refunds amid the lockdown
The pandemic is transforming business operations and outcomes. Recently, Cashfree which records more than 2 million transaction requests daily, has observed two major changes — a high number of cancellations and increased refund requests — from essential goods platforms like grocery and service-based platforms.
- Surge in orders cancellations: Most e-commerce websites dealing in non-essential goods and services – platforms like travel ticket booking and hotel booking platforms – are seeing a high number of previously booked orders’ cancellations and refund requests.
- Refunds requests for essential commodities and services: Due to the sudden uptick in online purchases for essential goods and services, and the pandemonium caused by the lockdown, the distribution, and supply chain has been disrupted, triggering delays and refunds.
Cashfree recently announced that it is working on solutions tailored for the unique payment needs of businesses across industries. Cashfree’s latest launches include a payment suite for lending platforms and a payment suite for insurance platforms.
Earlier this year Cashfree also launched an instant settlements feature for its payment gateway users that allows businesses to access their funds within 15 minutes of payment capture.
