Join Us for an Exclusive AMA on Improving your Returns Management with Shopify Experts!
Date: September 12th, 2024
Time: 10 AM EDT - 12 PM EDT
With the expected influx of returns after Black Friday, it’s crucial to prepare your business to handle them seamlessly. This is also an opportunity to build customer loyalty through an efficient and smooth returns process. In this AMA, our expert team will share insights and tools to simplify returns, and enhance the post-purchase experience. Post your questions below, and the Shopify Product and Marketing team will be here to answer them during the live session.
What to Expect:
Real-Time Q&A: Have questions about offering a seamless post-purchase experience, using returns to drive customer loyalty, or preparing your business for an influx of returns and exchanges post-BFCM and throughout the holiday season? This is your chance to ask!
Expert Advice: Get direct answers from the Product and Marketing teams at Shopify.
Community Engagement: Connect with other Shopify merchants, share your experiences, and learn best practices from one another.
How to Participate:
No pre-registration is required! Simply join the Shopify Community on September 12th between 10 AM and 12 PM EDT and dive right in with your questions. We also encourage you to leave your questions in the designated AMA thread below ahead of the event, and our experts will address them during the session.
*Please note, there is no video component to this AMA. This is a text based AMA. Your questions will be answered LIVE via text during the time period listed above.
I’m looking forward to the learning best practices with regards to returns and return management. I don’t offer my customers great return process. They just send back and we exchange or refund. Is a third party app needed or can a professional returns process be accomplished with included Shopify features.
Welcome to our last AMA session for our 3-part series, where we’ll be answering your questions about all things related to returns management, and how to best prepare your business for the upcoming sales season.
Our dedicated team of Product Managers, Product Marketers, and UXers specializing in the Returns space at Shopify are here to assist you. We’ll be available to answer your questions from 10 AM to 12 PM ET today. Please ask your questions in this thread. If we can’t address your question during this time, we’ll do our best to respond by the end of the day.
Hey @FishHead-Greg thank you for your question and participating in all of our AMAs this week!
You can manage your returns and exchanges within Shopify. One way you can make the experience more seamless for both you and your customers is by using self-serve returns, which allows your customers to initiate returns directly from their customer accounts on your online store. Additionally, you can set up a return policy and return rules which allow you to establish a specific return window, set return fees, and define specific rules around final sales for your products, and more.
You can also create and manage exchanges in your Shopify admin. Keep in mind that exchanges are not yet supported in the self-serve returns experience. However, there is space for your customer to leave a note in the self-serve workflow if they want to request an exchange. This is an area we are looking to improve in the future. If you have any other questions let us know!
Will there be better integration with Shipstation so that exchange orders get pulled into that platform?
I have tried filling out the exchange information in a return, but because the order number stays the same the return doesn’t come through into our shipping software and it’s essentially useless to us. I’m still making new orders for exchanges and leaving notes about which original order they are linked to.
Hi Jacqui! Excited to be here I have a few questions and have listed them out below.
What strategies can we implement on Shopify to reduce return rates during Black Friday and the holiday season (e.g., improved product descriptions, sizing guides, etc.)?
What are the best practices for handling high volumes of returns and exchanges during Black Friday and the holiday season on Shopify?
What are the best practices or guidelines to use when updating return/exchange windows for customers that order on Black Friday or during the holiday season?
How do you create a return if the customer is not getting an item that day to exchange? I have been having issues with doing returns since we as a small business do not do money back.
Thank you for your question. Please feel free to post it here, including details about your store setup or business model. Our team will do their best to provide specific answers by replying directly to your post.
Our product is big and bulky (think rolls of building insulation) and when someone wants to return them, they are required to pay return shipping. Additionally we charge a flat rate return fee and sometimes a 20% restocking fee too. I tried using the “rules” for returns to enable this but I’m not able to configure those 3 specific needs:
Customer pays return shipping
AND 2) They are charged a PER item return fee (varied depending on the item they are returning)
Wondering about this as well.. return for store credit used to be an option and now it looks like the only option is to return to the same form of payment.
Thanks for your question, @SoftwareCW . The most recent changes we’ve made to return rules is to integrate them with POS Pro.
Return rules have been added to POS Pro locations. When creating a return for an item that is outside the return window or identified as final sale item, items will be identified as ineligible for return with option to allow overrides based on staff permissions.
I would love to learn more about what updates you’re interested in.
Will Shopify give merchants the ability to customize the return reasons for self-serve returns? The current return reasons (size too large, too small, etc) don’t make sense at all for our products and would be confusing for our customers to see as the return reason choices (and expecting them to all choose “other” and type their reason isn’t ideal). I would love to utilize self-serve returns but haven’t yet because of this.
Hi there! Can you please share what issues you’ve been having with doing returns for your needs?
You can create a return in the admin order details page even when there isn’t an exchange involved, but I assume you know that and are likely looking for something else.
Our use case is, we sell digital download software only. So our refund policies states once the softwares license key has been used, there are no refunds.
Our internal download app can write an order tag to an order when the license key has been used.
Then in turn, the return module would see this order tag and not even offer the return option, thus saving everyone time.
Hi! Can you share more about how you would like to integrate store credit into your returns process? Do you create returns in the Shopify admin currently?
I have a few questions and have listed them out below.
