Can Shopify process manual returns without a receipt in a retail store?

Roostcollection
Pathfinder
97 1 91

We are a Brick and mortar gift shop. Customer service is No.1. Our policy is we return anything we sell, No questions. We also will not make the return a time consuming transaction.

Scenario, Customer wants to return a gift they received. No receipt. Purchaser paid cash and no idea of when purchase was made. No sale to attach item to.

Shopify does not allow manual returns. And only one refund per transaction. How do you complete this transaction?

I know you can issue a gift card via the admin on the computer. This take time, stops you at the register, sends to to the office, meanwhile you have other customers. Or you have to give your employees access to your admin which gives them access to your sales reports. (which is none of there business)

We switched from Clover POS because of other issues. But they did have a manual refund option. Currently we still subscribe to Clover just for this function. ($40 monthly)

Replies 13 (13)

Timothy_Noblett
Tourist
4 0 8

Definitely, this is something that needs to be addressed. It's been an issue being talked about for years and can't believe there isn't a solution for this.

 

 

Roostcollection
Pathfinder
97 1 91

This morning I understand Shopify will not allow returns or exchanges unless you pay the $89 monthly fee with PRO.

Isn't this basic function of a business?

Roostcollection
Pathfinder
97 1 91

Looked in the

Shopify changelog     Your source for recent updates

Going back one year. Not a single mention of adding this basic function. MANUAL RETURNS

 

Shopify you SUCK!

HorseyHabit
Visitor
2 0 7

You can't do manual returns in the $89 Pro version either.  Can't even find an app to work around this.  Sick to my stomach over this, we go live Feb 1 and have NO real solution that tracks sale tax or inventory correctly.  Dumbest thing ever for a POS to not have the ability to refund products. 

zforever
Shopify Partner
4 0 1

Have you ever figured out a solution?

petgrocer
Trailblazer
215 2 327

They have no solution for when you switch systems with an existing store either. We had a client bring a return in that was purchased on our old system, two days after going live with Shopify and I was unable to issue the return. The accounting tracking for this system is shameful. I have no idea how to track our losses and account for them at year end. I'm starting an excel spreadsheet for all these myriad errors and lack of accountability in tracing the losses. This is not a full function POS yet, it's an online store with the ability to take payments in person. Hoping for some more basic features soon (manual returns, edit the monetary lines on purchase orders, see a FULL list of each client's purchases rather than just each invoice manually one by one, store credit, reloadable gift cards! and more).

IvesCuratedGift
Tourist
3 0 8

Has there been an additional work on manual returns? We are a gift giving shop and sometimes its difficult to find the original order when it was a gift. 

 

Thanks. 

petgrocer
Trailblazer
215 2 327

No change. But they did work on making the boxes have a new graphic on the admin and took away the search bars! Lots of work being done but not on things that enhance functionality that we can see.

 

We DO need a way to do manual returns, and the new set up with the 'return to inventory' could use a big fix as well when doing returns. It's still a mess.

 

Unless you get thousands of users complaining for years, you will not get a fix for things like this. It took seven years to get dupilicate account merge function set up. I feel badly for the devs, they must have nothing but frustrated users constantly. If they tried doing a community based and driven change that included active users they would get different feedback. We have given up bothering to try to call in. The process is so time consuming and frustrating, so I imagine others, like us, no longer bother. Which means @Shopify  has lost the true stats on what is really frustrating to their users. @Shopify  Do you hear our needs with this? Can you look at using your forums or reach out via email PRIOR to working on changes, to see what your active community needs? 

 

Always trying to stay hopeful.

Xaser3
Tourist
4 0 2

I am in need of manual refunds, too. The official reply from Shopify is the following:

 

"

  1. From the Shopify POS app, tap the + button to add a product.
  2. Tap Custom Item.
  3. Enter the details of the item being returned, including the price.
  4. Tap Add to Cart.
  5. Tap Checkout and complete the transaction as you normally would.
  6. Once the transaction is complete, you can then refund the transaction.

This way, you're essentially creating a new sale and then immediately refunding it. This should help you manage returns more efficiently when you can't find the original order."

 

I'm not entirely sure this helps but it may help someone. I'm still hunting for a solution before my go-live in Jan

New to Shopify
Moving a Magento eCommerce solution for a local business to Shopify to serve the United Kingdom
petgrocer
Trailblazer
215 2 327

This is a disgusting recommendation that they gave you. To completely mess up your accounting because Shopify can't bother to code a proper return for a point of sale system. They spend lots of time changing colours and make the tiles so big you can't see what's in the cart at the check out, and removing the search bar, but can't code it so we can actually use this like a point of sale system.

Xaser3
Tourist
4 0 2

Thanks for your reply

 

We're live now in the physical shop, and currently relying on our old card machine to refund back to cards. We're not sacrificing our accounting by running the suggested process as it's ridiculous. I am trying to convince the staff to take down as many emails as possible but I know there's no chance in 'back to school' times due to the sheer amount of people we'd need to serve.

 

Going back to the preferred method from Shopify's point of view, finding the original order, one thing we've realised is that you can search by the final 4 digits of the customers card in the Order screen. This could help some people as long as the customer remembers which they used, but wont work very well for customers using Apple/Google pay as that has a different number. As it's also only 4 digits, so the search could bring up 4 digit order numbers or receipt numbers etc., we would still be in the position of finding an order manually with a line of customers waiting, for a refund on what could only be a £5 tie.

 

Shopify, other POS systems work like this:

Scan the product being brought back, press return, salesperson checks customers card against receipt, put in customers card for refund, print receipt. System places item back in stock (optional, salespersons discretion), salesperson marks original receipt to indicate a return. 

Simple!

New to Shopify
Moving a Magento eCommerce solution for a local business to Shopify to serve the United Kingdom
Meeky1
Tourist
3 0 2

We are moving to Shopify POS and are so disappointed that there is no way to refund sales from our old system. How can we possibly run an accurate daily cash balance and stock levels, you can't!

Shopify chat said that there is no work around and will pass my comments on to development! Come on Shopify it is a simple task that all shops must need when moving from another system, and these comments go back 5 years. How can Shopify even offer tills that can not do simple refunds from other systems?!  Very poor that they are not developing this as a matter of urgency. Anyone else please ask the question on their support chat and get them to pass on the comments to the development team. Thanks

zforever
Shopify Partner
4 0 1
I thought this was detrimental as well. But it really hasn’t been. I kept
a terminal in our back room from our old system for a month, and it worked
like a charm. After that month, you can take care of the customer in other
ways like doing a cash out in your system, or there is an app to allow no
receipt exchanges to a gift card.
https://apps.shopify.com/return-without-receipt?search_id=a8d706fd-7243-4618-932e-da5998d60859&surfa...