Skip to content

How do I cancel or refund a customer's order?

Are you the buyer? You might be looking for this article instead >> How to cancel an order that I have placed

Advice for sellers

How to cancel an unpaid order, or refund and cancel a paid order

Cancelling unpaid orders

Why is the order awaiting payment?

Buyers are able to place unpaid orders on Folksy via our 'alternative checkout' if they experience problems with Paypal at checkout, or if they do not want to use Paypal. For this reason, it's a good idea to offer card payments in addition to PayPal. You can enable that from your Dashboard! Learn More

But I already have Stripe/card payments enabled in my shop!

Buyers are only offered the option to pay by card if all of the sellers in the orderset have Stripe enabled. If you have received a notification that the buyer is having problems with PayPal, it's likely they were buying from more than one seller and not all of them have Stripe enabled.

Do I need to contact the buyer?

Yes, please contact the buyer to see if you can help before cancelling the sale. You can try sending the buyer a Paypal invoice or money request directly to their email address via your Paypal account, or organise another form of payment. If you receive payment by this method, please mark the order as paid on the order detail page so that you can update the shipping status. Don't worry if you do not wish to offer alternative payment methods - you can simply cancel the order, but please let the buyer know why their order is being cancelled. 

If you do already have Stripe enabled in your shop and the buyer can't pay using PayPal, you can cancel the order and ask the buyer to place their order again. Ask them to only place items from your shop in their basket, and they will see the option to pay by card.

What if I don't hear back from the buyer?

If you do not hear from your buyer within a few days, we have to assume that they have changed their mind, and you should cancel the order.
More information: What if the buyer does not pay?

How to cancel an unpaid order

You can cancel orders which are 'awaiting payment' using the ‘cancel order’ button on the order screen in Your Shop > Orders > View order details

Clicking on the 'cancel order' button will delete the order from the Folksy system and send a cancellation email to the buyer. This puts the item back for sale in your shop without further charge and the commission fee for the order will be removed from your bill.

Cancelling paid orders

Returns

Buyers are entitled to cancel an order even if the goods are not faulty, as long as they contact you in writing within 14 days of receiving their order. They can do this by emailing you or by sending you a standard cancellation form. Please see our Sales & Returns Policy for information about the buyer's rights to cancel their order.

If your buyer cancels an order that they have received, you will need to contact them to organise the return of the item. Note that from June 13th 2014, you can wait until the goods have been returned to you (or until the buyer provides evidence that they have posted the goods back to you) before refunding their order. If the order has not yet been sent, skip to refunds >

Refunds

To cancel a paid order on Folksy, you will firstly need to refund the customer from the Paypal or Stripe transaction. To do this, please log into your Paypal or Stripe account and select 'issue refund' from the dropdown menu alongside the transaction.

If you're not sure when or how much of the buyer's payment you should refund, or who is responsible for return postage, read our quick guide to your buyers' rights and your obligations regarding cancellations, faulty goods and lost items in our Returns Policy.

How to cancel a paid (refunded) order 

Once you have issued the refund, please contact us with the details of the order and we can cancel the order for you.

Details we will need are:

  • The Folksy order number (copy the url from your browser's address bar when you are on the order detail page), e.g. http://folksy.com/users/yourusername/orders/123456
Alternatively, please give us as much detail about the order as possible:
  • Your Folksy username
  • The buyer's username or email address
  • Date of the order
  • Item title(s)
Cancelling the order will increase the stock level of the item by 1 so please let us know if you have already re-listed the item or if the item is no longer available.

Feedback and Knowledge Base