Olive Young Improves 'Preparing for Shipment' Cancellation Policy, Reducing Customer Service Inquiries by 90%

Olive Young improved its existing policy that restricted order cancellations during the 'Preparing for Shipment' status, allowing customers to cancel directly within the app. Previously, cancellations were blocked at the point of shipment instruction (task assignment) at the logistics center, but this update delayed the cancellation deadline to the stage immediately preceding the point where physical reversal is impossible.

Changes to Cancellation Deadlines by Delivery Type

The timing for possible cancellation was segmented according to the characteristics of each delivery type.

• Center Delivery: Shipment instruction point → Picking completion point (after the item leaves the shelf)
• Vendor Delivery: Shipment instruction point → Invoice registration point (after handover to the courier is confirmed)
• Today Dream: Order acceptance confirmation point → Dispatch point (after rider assignment)

As a result, the criteria for determining non-cancellable status, which were previously distributed across four locations (order form, My Page, etc.), have been consolidated and managed as a single timestamp value called 'Non-cancellable Time'.

Technical Challenges and Solutions

The backend structure was overhauled to ensure immediate cancellation confirmation.

• Real-time Signal Integration: A new Kafka topic was configured to publish picking completion events from the logistics system, which the delivery system subscribes to. To prevent event loss, a double safety mechanism was implemented to record the non-cancellable time even upon shipment confirmation events.
• Concurrency Control: Redis distributed locks were applied to handle cases where dispatching for Today Dream orders and customer cancellations occur simultaneously. This enforces the order when cancellation and dispatch requests overlap, preventing incidents where riders are assigned to orders that have already been cancelled.
• Fault Isolation: The system was designed to confirm customer cancellations immediately, even if responses from external delivery agency APIs are delayed or fail. Circuit breakers and SQS were utilized to isolate external system failures from propagating to the main cancellation logic, with compensation processing handled in the background.

Results and Significance

This improvement reduced 'Preparing for Shipment' cancellation-related inquiries (VOC) to the customer center by approximately 90% during normal periods and 89% during sale periods. The rate of self-cancellations within the app increased to about three times the level of customer service inquiries, resulting in savings on return logistics costs and customer support handling costs. Olive Young chose a system that absorbs uncertainty to guarantee cancellation as a customer right rather than a subject for negotiation.