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When a customer cancels or wants a refund

For the SMS Reminder Shopify app. Using SMS Reminder with Google Calendar instead? See the general help center.

Written by Steve Lionais

Appointments change. Here's how cancellations, reschedules and refunds work, and what you need to do on the Shopify side.

How a customer cancels or reschedules

Customers can do it themselves. Their booking confirmation email includes the appointment details and links to reschedule or cancel, and the same options appear on the page right after they book. They can also contact you, and you can cancel from your side.

It's still worth adding your cancellation policy and contact details to your Shopify order confirmation email, under Settings → Notifications in your Shopify admin — so the terms are in writing before anyone uses that cancel link.

Cancelling on your side

Cancel or refund the order in your Shopify admin → Orders — this frees the time slot automatically, so it's open for someone else to book and comes off your calendar.

Refunding a paid appointment

Appointments are Shopify products, so refunds work exactly like any other order:

  1. Go to Shopify admin → Orders and open the order.

  2. Click Refund.

  3. Choose a full or partial refund and confirm.

Refunds are always issued by you — the app never refunds automatically, even when a customer cancels through their link. Whether to refund is your call, following your own cancellation policy.

Free or pay-in-person bookings

If the appointment wasn't paid online, there's nothing to refund — just cancel the order to free up the slot.

No-shows

Nothing happens automatically. Whether you keep the payment is between you and your cancellation policy. If you want to keep the slot as a record, leave the appointment in place; if you'd rather free the time, cancel it.

Rescheduling

Customers reschedule themselves with the reschedule link in their booking confirmation email (or on the page after booking). No refund is needed — the same order carries over to the new time. You can turn rescheduling off per appointment type under Disable rescheduling (see Create your first appointment type).

Related

  • Sell appointments through Shopify checkout

  • Your bookings dashboard

  • Create your first appointment type


Still stuck? Start a chat with us using the Messenger in the bottom-right corner and let us know the Shopify order number.

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