Flipkart Marketplace Platform  ·  View 06 of 25  ·  2 · People and journeys

Journey — Return and Refund

The journey nobody designs for, which decides how much working capital the platform carries and who eats the loss.

Editable source SVG draw.io All views
Returning shopper 6-8% of units come back Goal — Send the wrong item back and get money, not a credit note Trigger — Opening a box that is damaged, wrong or not as described Done when — Refund on the original instrument, visible while it happens 1 · Raise in the app 2 · Pick up reverse leg 3 · Inspect ◆ moment of truth 4 · Refund ◆ moment of truth 5 · Recover who pays What they do Picks a reason Uploads a photo Hands to the rider Waits Checks the bank Where Returns flow app Rider app QR handover Return centre Refund status Seller dashboard How it feels Delighted Fine Frustrated Behind the glass Returns service Abuse scoring Reverse logistics Grading and restock Refund saga Claims and chargeback Where it hurts Pickup missed twice Silence for 5 days COD refund needs IFSC Seller charged unfairly What would fix it Instant refund if low risk Slot the pickup Push on each grade step UPI handle at checkout Evidence-linked claim How we know Return rate 6.8% Pickup SLA 92% Grade p50 36 h Refund p90 48 h Claim win rate User Journey — Return, Reverse Pickup and Refund The empty Recover cells are where the customer view ends, not a gap. Inspect is where trust is lost, and instant refunds trade money for retention. v 1.0 · owner Product + Enterprise Architecture · date 2026-09

The trough, and what it decides

  • Inspect is silent for days, so grading emits an event per step and the customer is told each time
  • A COD refund with no instrument on file forces a bank-detail collection nobody wants — so a UPI handle is captured at COD checkout
  • Charging the seller for a buyer-caused return without evidence is how sellers leave; every claim links to the grading evidence

Decisions

  • Instant refund before inspection is gated on an abuse score — it is a deliberate trade of money for retention, priced per cohort
  • Refund is a Temporal saga, not an in-line call, because it spans the payment rail, the ledger and the seller claim
  • Reverse logistics reuses the forward network in the opposite direction rather than being a separate system

Numbers

  • 6-8% of units return, concentrated in fashion and large appliances
  • Refund p90 within 48 hours of grading, and within minutes where instant refund is granted
  • Reverse pickup SLA 92%, the weakest number on the page
◀  Journey — Seller, Listing to Settlement All views Layered Architecture  ▶
Solution Architecture v1.0 · Open source on Microsoft Azure · Enterprise Architecture · 2026-0906-journey-return-and-refund