Undo windows
The cancellation ladder and the 120-hour return window
Five order statuses, five different answers to can I still back out. All of it is written down in the operator’s help centre; this page lays the ladder flat and attaches the costs.
Help id 87
The ladder, stage by stage
Source: help id 87, read 2026-10-10. The stage names in brackets are the exact status strings your order list shows.
- [paid]
Contact customer service and the order cancels. Cleanest exit on the ladder.
- [Processing]
The agent has bought, the seller has not shipped. Cancellation still goes through, and the payment returns to your account balance.
- [Mailed]
The seller has shipped. From here every undo is a negotiation with the seller; if return freight applies, it is deducted from what comes back to your balance.
- [Warehouse] within 5 days · exchange
Exchange requests go to the seller; agreed swaps take 7 to 20 days of restocking, and the freight for a paid exchange is the buyer’s.
- [Warehouse] within 5 days · return
Return requests go to the seller; agreed returns pay out 7 to 15 days after the seller confirms, with return shipping deducted from the refund.
Past the window, the help text is blunt: the agent will ask the seller, and if the seller declines, the product cannot be returned. The ladder is the whole safety net.
Return eligibility under the 5-day guarantee
The window is 120 hours, counted from the next full hour after the status turns Stocked in (help id 51, read 2026-10-10 and confirmed 2026-10-14). It is the seller’s service relayed by the agent, which is why every answer above says subject to the seller.
Whole categories sit outside it: custom-made goods, items with tags removed, second-hand goods, products from outside the Chinese mainland, undergarments, adult products, food, newspapers and periodicals, books under fifteen copies, and Special Standards products whose seals are opened. If your find is in one of those, the label comparison on the batches page is the only check you get.
Who pays, when it goes wrong
The help centre splits responsibility three ways. Buyer-reason returns price out as freight to the seller, freight back, plus the monthly service tier. Seller faults, a wrong item shipped or a quality issue visible at stock-in, cost the customer nothing. Courier damage on the domestic leg lands on the carrier, not on you.
The worked examples in the table put numbers on it: a second return in a month runs freight plus a 5 yuan service fee, a sixth runs freight plus 10. Read against the ladder, the lesson is timing: the same regret costs nothing at [Processing] and two freight legs at [Warehouse].
Refund routes and how long they take
Refunds land on your account balance first; from there, withdrawal timing depends on the rail. The help centre’s table (embedded image dated 2022-07-12, still the published version on 2026-10-10) lists PayPal balance at 2 to 3 working days, card rails through PayPal at 3 to 10, with the same split for Alipay and WeChat paths. Recharge refunds go back to the original payment method, handling fee on the user.
One habit ties this page together: check the status string before you ask for anything. The helper bakes the ladder in, and the guide shows where each status sits in the pipeline.
