I am running into an issue with offering refunds. If a customer comes back into my store with an item to return and no receipt, I have to do a payout, or remove money from the till rather than do a proper return or exchange. Is there a way for me to perform a return without a receipt or customer info? Id like to be able to just have a return button essentially without having to attach it to a customer or order.
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Hi, @LCG !
Julie here from Shopify Support.
Great question. At the moment, a POS order can only be refunded through the original order that was placed. If a customer doesn’t have a receipt, you could always search for the order through the POS app using the product title. Without orders being tied to a customer profile, this should be a good workaround. However, I can understand that this method wouldn’t be ideal if you are processing a large amount of orders.
Moving forward, it would be a good idea to gather customers’ names at the time of sale. This would ensure that orders can be easily found should they wish to return an item without a receipt. As an alternative, you could also issue a gift card as store credit, then manually adjust the inventory quantities for the product that was returned.
I can definitely see how being able to offer refunds without a receipt is a much-needed feature. That being said, I’d be happy to pass this along to our developers as a feature request; we are always looking to improve the Shopify platform and suggestions like these really help!
You mentioned that when currently handling refunds with no receipt, you are simply removing the money from the till. Are you doing this for exchanges or just returns?
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Thanks! recommending as a feature would be great.
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It seems like this has been a problem dating back to 2015. Everybody says they are going to recommend it to a developer but after 5 years there is still not a fix. This is a really important issue for my store which does mainly gift business since the items returned have to be refunded to the gift giver instead of the recipient. I just switched over and am already regretting it. Just adding a minus button would fix it. Not too hard of a fix from what I can see.
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Hi, @SweetpeaBaby .
I appreciate your feedback and I completely understand the need for this feature. The more feedback we get, the higher we can raise the priority on implementing something like this, so I’ll be sure to add your name to the list.
In the meantime, have you been able to take advantage of one of the workarounds suggested above?
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just putting in my two cents…
This is a huge downfall for me. I have a gift store too. The last thing I want to do is return a gift to the original purchase. Discretion is key in a gift return and a simple return without attaching it to an order would be appreciated.
Second, I am just converting to Shopify from my quickbooks POS that I have had for 17 years for a more seamless online and brick and mortar sales approach. Problem is once I reopen after covid I am sure I am going to have several returns that will not currently be associated with Shopify. They will be on my QB POS. In my QB we could change any sale line to a return line with a button. Shopify is definitely missing this feature. Hoping they will address it soon…thanks
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I have been absolutely shocked to find this out. I’m incredibly bummed as we are a privately owned Patagonia store but process returns for store credit from all Patagonia stores and this happens multiple times per day. We are about to launch Shopify on Tuesday but honestly I think we are going to have to go to RICS’ new platform if this is not figured out. This seems insane to me that this is an issue at all but is pretty much a deal breaker to me. I also had to let Patagonia, Corp know as they were asking about this platform and it would not work for them either. Huge bummer!
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Do you mind if I ask how you are currently refunding without a receipt? We just launched Shopify two weeks ago and it has not been a seamless transition to say the least. I had Quickbooks for 20 years and never had these issues. My largest complaint are returns. I too have a gift store. The returns/exchanges I have received have had a receipt but the gift giver is receiving notification of the return or exchange. This is outrageous to me and a sure fire way to lose business. I just want to be able to do a return without connecting it to the original sale. Any suggestions would be great. Because their suggestion is pretty lame for a point of sale software and doesn’t account for tax. If I give a gift card for the amount of the sale tax is not being credited my tax report. Therefore I am paying tax on items and also crediting tax on items that were returned. So backwards to me. Just looking for insight from a fellow business owner…thanks in advance!!
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I assume you’ve had no success on getting answers, but I’m wondering if you’ve figured out a work around? I’m also really struggling with this lack of feature. So embarrassing to have the original purchaser notified when an item is exchanged… and like you said issuing a Gift Card isn’t the proper way to do your books. Thanks.
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fortunately I live in Oregon and don’t have to deal with the sales tax issue. I can only imagine the level of frustration that must cause. Any luck with anything. I am still waiting to hear a solution or even a half coherent response.
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The way we currently do it is to to select “remove” from the till and pay them cash. However, this has its own set of issues in the terms of inventory and also bookkeeping. Shopify is really dropping the ball on this, especially after raising my rates from 79 per month to 182 per month! I don’t even get new features for the price!
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add us to the list who feel this is a critical feature.
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I agree too - we need this feature ASAP. Especially since we have a lot of high profile customers who don’t want their name in a database. How can we push Shopify to make this enhancement? We were able to do this on all of our older POS systems. With all the money Shopify is pulling in they should fix this - I know of a few major retailers moving away from Shopify and switching to newstore for reasons like this.
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Please pass this along to your developers as a request.
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Hi Julie,
I would second the original poster’s question. My employer just made the switch to Shopify POS and we are working through the transition at the moment. We are a clothing retailer with 6 brick and mortar locations and also have a significant e-commerce business as well. A significant portion of our returns are items that were gifted being returned or exchanged for new sizing or new products and the person that received the gift does not have a receipt. Being able to initiate a return as an order/transaction with a unique order number would be incredibly helpful for our business.
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Another voice to support the urgent need for this feature.
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Adding my voice to the conversation. I simply have no choice but to look elsewhere for a POS system if ad hoc returns are not supported, even though I have used Shopify for my online store for several years.
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Seems pretty simple - enable negative quantity and all is well. Get it done. We just moved over from Lightspeed and this is a must have.
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EXACTLY…..cannot believe this is STILL an issue. I am launching a new store and seriously considering a different platform. This has been a HUGE negative for me and my business.
Idk how to get the point across any clearer…like you said just enable a negative quantity….every other POS has it. Seems like such a simple solution!
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