Been talking to merchants about warranty management lately and everyone seems to handle it differently. Wanted to ask how everyone else handles it.
Most stores I see are still on spreadsheets. Customer emails in, you dig up the order, check the date, figure out if coverage is still valid, reply. That works when you’re getting 5-10 claims a month. Once you hit 50+ it starts falling apart. Things get missed, customers wait too long, and there’s no way for them to check their own status.
Some stores have gotten clever with Shopify metafields, tagging orders with warranty expiration dates. Better because the data stays in Shopify, but customers still can’t self-serve and claims are still manual.
Then there are the third-party insurance apps like Clyde, Extend, and Mulberry. Great for selling extended warranty as a paid upsell. But they’re built around insurance-backed programs. If you manufacture your own products and include a 1-2 year warranty as part of the purchase, these don’t really fit. You don’t need insurance underwriting, you just need to track what’s covered and handle claims.
That last part is the gap I kept running into. Auto-registering warranties when orders ship, giving customers a page to check their own coverage, tracking claims without living in your inbox. I ended up building a Shopify app for it (Warranty Pilot, free plan available) because nothing else covered that workflow without requiring third-party insurance.
What about you? If you sell physical products with included warranties, how are you managing it? Still on spreadsheets, or have you found something that works?