POS Return Issues

Retail & Point of Sale
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Topic summary

Retailers transitioning to Shopify POS are experiencing significant frustrations with the return/refund process, particularly on POS Go devices.

Key Issues Identified:

  • Missing search functionality: No ability to search orders within a customer’s account on POS Go (feature exists on desktop)
  • Accidental refund processing: A prominent blue “Refund” button automatically processes refunds to original payment method, easily triggered by mistake during busy periods
  • Gift card refund complications: When original purchases used gift cards, accidental refunds go to discarded cards, requiring manual recovery. System doesn’t allow full refund amounts (including rewards/coupons) to transfer to new gift cards
  • No refund cancellation: Unlike new transactions with 15-minute cancel windows, refunds cannot be voided once processed
  • Unverified returns workaround: Creates additional problems including exclusion from end-of-day calculations, requiring manual VAT adjustments
  • Limited refund flexibility: Cannot refund to different payment methods (e.g., customer vs. original purchaser’s card)

Additional POS Limitations:

  • No simple cash expense recording for operational costs
  • Inadequate replenishment and retail-focused reporting
  • Poor end-of-day reconciliation workflow

Both users, coming from Lightspeed and other established EPOS systems, question whether Shopify POS meets brick-and-mortar retail needs, suggesting developers consult actual retail operators.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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We are a brick and mortar retail shop and have discovered several issues that make processing returns on the POS Go Devices a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

  • There needs to be a search function when trying to find an order that’s located in a customer’s account. This exists on the desktop but not on the POS Go device. For example, when viewing all orders in a customer’s profile, searching “Patagonia Men’s Jacket” would filter the orders down to just the ones that have that item.

  • Once you load the correct sale into a refund, a large blue “Refund” bar pops up at the bottom of the screen. Selecting this instantly sends the refund back to the original form of payment. This button is extremely easy to select by accident, and causes several problems when this happens:

    • If the customer used a gift card for the original purchase, it sends the refund back to that original gift card. Most of the time customers don’t keep their gift cards once they are used up, so it basically goes onto a ghost gift card. We then have to locate that gift card on the computer, attach the customer to it, and only have the option for it to be digital at that point.
    • Most of our refunds go back onto a gift card rather than a credit card. We’ve tried extremely hard to train our staff to scroll up and select the “refund to gift card” option rather than the large blue bar at the bottom, but when we’re busy it’s too easy to select the blue bar by mistake, and at that point there’s no going back.
    • This issue could be resolved by adding a “Choose Refund Payment Method” step rather than defaulting to the original form of payment. It should require employees to select which payment method they’d like to return the funds to rather than defaulting to any specific method.

  • Once you complete a return, it doesn’t take you back to the home screen to start another sale. You have to back out through each step and remove that customer from the cart, which is approximately 10 clicks.

  • We use BON Loyalty for our rewards program. If a customer purchases items using a rewards coupon that they’ve earned and later want to return any of those items, it will not allow you to put the full amount of the item on a gift card.

    • Shopify needs to allow the full amount of the item being returned to go onto a gift card. It seems that when a rewards coupon is used, it isn’t considered to be a payment method, therefore not allowing those funds to be loaded onto a gift card. Our workaround has been using the Unverified Returns feature, but that opens up a whole other world of problems.

  • If we mess up and select the original card as the payment method, there’s no way to cancel/void the refund. The 15 minute “Cancel Order” window only applies to the time of the original transaction, and since returns are typically made days/weeks later, we aren’t able to cancel/void the return transaction.

    • This could be resolved by allowing a 15 minute cancel window to all transactions, not just initial orders.

As a recent Lightspeed convert, these are all issues that we were not used to having to deal with. Maybe we were just spoiled on the few things that Lightspeed made easy, but hopefully we’re not the only ones experiencing these problems and Shopify can implement some new features to make the return process a bit more seamless!

1 Like
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Weve just moved over to Shopify from a thoroughly developed EPOS system and wondering if weve made the right decision here. W too have had problems with the POS - the unverified returns is helpful but it is still so basic. As a well established retailer with very good relationships with our local customers we are struggling with flexibilty of this system. It would be good if the developers could speak to some people with a bricks and mortar retail business to understand what we need. some of the things are so basic its really frustrating. like allowing us to record removing cash for a window cleane or sundries for the shop - i dont want or need an app to take 20 pounds out a week i just want to be able to record it as an expense properly and not just as removing cash. Currently having to add up my unverified returns at the end of the day as those do not come off the end of day net figure - which means we will paying the vat on those returns. when talking to shopify they say i can pull a report? but why should i need to, when all the other purchases and returns are calculated on the end session summary - except the unverified return. Im not a tech person but surely it would be a really simple thing to make my end of day cashing up streamlined by being all in one place to get to an end of day net figure. also running a report to get a summary of the end of day unverified returns is not going to work when the those returns are listed as a simple 0 instead of the actual minus value of the return, and also duplicated in the report??? have no idea why but its really backwards and hurts my head when i try to look at their suggested report which is supposed to help me.

Also couldnt refund my customer who brought back a bracelet that was bought by her son for her birthday but it broke so she asked for a refund. couldnt do it, could only be refunded back to her sons card? lots of little niggly things, like cant pull a replen report straight the POS system to replenish the shop floor - have to go into reporting and the layout and detail isnt simplified enough for us to see what needs to be pulled for the stockroom, it ouwl have to be print like a ful report rtather than just a list of style size colour!

reporting is still quite a way off for the in store retail side. you can micro analyse any behaviours from an online customer perspective but i would say the retail sales reports at best are lacking on the most basic of things. its as though theyve used the same team to set up the day to day functionality of the POS system without really consulting any of the bricks and mortar retail specialists, anyway i will keeping trying to find solutions and workarounds but really struggling with it so far and feeling really deflated that we cant find solutions. I hope they start to take this seriously.