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E-commerce platforms will completely cancel the "refund only" policy

E-commerce platforms will completely cancel the "refund only" policy

News2025-04-23

After four years, 'refund only' has exited the historical stage.
According to the Beijing Business Daily, many e-commerce platforms, such as Pinduoduo, Taobao, Jingdong, Tiktok, and Kwai, will completely cancel "refund only", and consumers' "refund not return" applications after receiving goods will be handled by the merchants themselves. The above-mentioned e-commerce platforms have had multiple rounds of discussions and modifications with the management department regarding the complete cancellation of the "refund only" policy. Once the review is completed, it will be publicly announced to the public.

It is worth noting that the cancellation of "refund only" has long been foreshadowed. During this year's Two Sessions, relevant national regulatory departments have issued strong signals, clearly stating that they will take measures to address the prominent problem of platforms abusing the refund only rule and causing merchants to have their payments empty.

Image source: Beijing Business Daily
In 2021, Pinduoduo took the lead in introducing the "refund only" policy, and later in 2024, it was introduced by JD, Taobao, Tiktok, Kwai and other related platforms. However, with the frequent controversies surrounding the "refund only" mechanism, in July last year, Taobao and Tmall took the lead in "loosening restrictions" and optimizing the "refund only" strategy for all merchants, including enhancing merchant after-sales autonomy based on the new version of the experience score and reducing or canceling after-sales interventions for high-quality stores. Among them, for merchants with a comprehensive store experience score of ≥ 4.8, the platform will not actively intervene through Wangwang and supports refunds only after receiving the goods. Merchants are encouraged to negotiate with consumers first. The higher the merchant experience score, the greater the autonomy to dispose of it.
Last December, Kwai E-commerce also announced that, due to the adjustment of business content and the platform's comprehensive consideration and decision, Kwai E-commerce is now abolishing the "refund and no return service", and will later launch better service products for everyone to use. For merchants who have already activated the "refund without return service", the platform will terminate the service provided to merchants on December 2nd. Merchants can voluntarily terminate their contracts before December 2nd, and the platform will automatically terminate the contract for merchants who have not terminated their contracts by then. For existing orders, the system will still execute according to the original configuration content.
In March of this year, Alibaba's source factory goods platform 1688 also announced that it would fully relax its "refund only" policy starting from late March. When dealing with transaction disputes related to product quality issues, the platform will judge based on the integrity of the account, subsidize the damaged party, accelerate dispute resolution, and improve business efficiency.

Image source: Zhiwei Data
At present, Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo have released feedback drafts to cancel the "refund only" feedback solicitation.
Taobao announcement shows that: 1. Taobao platform encourages merchants to actively serve and gain more favor from consumers. In the future, they will not actively intervene in consumers' after-sales applications for non return, refund, and after-sales service after receiving the goods. The seller will first negotiate with the consumer to handle it. At the same time, the platform plans to gradually modify and improve the current after-sales related rules, clarify the relevant return and refund situations, and establish a special section for return and refund rules to help merchants and consumers better understand.
2. The Taobao platform will upgrade its after-sales service page to identify the logistics status of transaction orders and match corresponding functional options, providing consumers with clearer after-sales service choices. For example, if a consumer has already signed for an order and applied for after-sales service, "Return/Refund", "Exchange", and "Repair" will be displayed side by side. 3. The Taobao platform will provide merchants with convenient product functions and service capabilities such as negotiated after-sales and door-to-door pickup, helping merchants to solve targeted problems such as recovering orders and retrieving returned goods from consumers who are inconvenient to return. The above measures are expected to be implemented gradually in July.
Pinduoduo announced that in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of platform merchants and consumers, it will continue to improve after-sales related rules. On the one hand, it will further support merchants and consumers to solve related after-sales problems through independent negotiation. The platform will not actively intervene in consumers' non return and full refund after-sales applications after receiving the goods unless necessary; On the other hand, clarifying the relevant rules for after-sales returns and refunds, Pinduoduo has revised the "Pinduoduo After sales Service Rules" and publicly solicited opinions.
In order to effectively protect the rights and interests of consumers and promote the independent operation of merchants, and further optimize the allocation of responsibilities in the negotiation and resolution of problems between consumers and merchants, JD.com has revised the "JD Open Platform After sales Service Management Rules" and related rules. The revised content mainly focuses on return and refund scenarios, clarifying the disposal rules in return and refund scenarios. For example, in the self-service after-sales processing process, the wording "refund only, no return, only refund" will be modified to "refund, refund, no return", and the wording "refund only" will be removed from other terms. The revision public notice period is from April 22, 2025 to April 29, 2025, and the rules are expected to come into effect on April 30, 2025. Upon the expiration of the public notice period, formal effective rules will be issued separately.

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E-commerce platforms will completely cancel the "refund only" policy