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Returnly offers a variety of return settings to suit your business needs. This article outlines the settings which can be found on the Returnly dashboard on the Return Settings page.
Now, your Return Policy, Shipping and Return Reasons will have dedicated tabs, thus optimizing ease of use.
Remember, make sure that your Return Policy is accessible and easily understood/simply written for your customers. Having it appear in multiple places (on your website, and on your Returns Center) will reduce the amount of inquiries you'll receive from your customers.
At the bottom of this page, you'll see Best Practice resources that can further guide you in creating the best Return Policy for your business as well as your customers.
Return Settings: Return Policy
Default Return Window
This is the number of days from the date of fulfillment(not when the item is received) that your customer has to initiate a return. The system default is 30 days, and can be set to what works best for your customers.
"Return by" Date
- This setting should be configured to match your return policy for the number of days by which the customer should drop their return package off at the postal carrier.
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- Changing this setting does not change your return policy, though.
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- The number of days configured in this setting is added to the return confirmation date.
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- For example, if the "Return by" date setting is configured to 14 days and the customer confirms their return on Jan. 1, the confirmation page and packing slip will indicate to the customer, "Please return before Jan. 15, 2022."
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- The "Return by" date setting can be configured between 1 day and 14 days.
- There is no penalty if the customer does not return the package by the date indicated.
Holiday Return Window
As with the "Default Return Window," the "Holiday Return Window" determines the timeframe a customer has to initiate a return -- with two distinct options for you to select from, both based on a set "Start date" and "End date":
- Days to return: # of days a customer will have to initiate their return .
- Return until: Last calendar date a customer will be able to initiate their return on.
For a deeper dive on how this works, check out the following article: Deep Dive: Setting a Holiday Eligibility Window.
3.Auto-Return Authorization
With Auto-return Authorization enabled, each RMA will be automatically authorized after a customer submits a return, and the customer will be issued a shipping label right away. When disabled, your team must manually review and authorize each return in the Manage Returns tab before a label is created.
Best Practice: Allowing the customers to create an RMA automatically based on your Return Policy settings cuts down on work for your customer support team. We highly recommend you enable this feature.
4.Auto-Restock Products
This setting ensures that the restock checkbox is checked by default. This setting should only be used in the event that you are using Returnly as the sole restocking method. When the RMA is refunded the product will be restocked within your eCommerce platform.
If your warehouse is restocking - you would want this setting disabled in Returnly to avoid double restocking.
5.Limit Returns to Fulfilled Products
This setting allows you to limit returns to products which have been fulfilled. Enabling this setting will ensure that customers are not returning items that have not yet been shipped.
6.Comments Required
When enabled, this setting requires that customers leave a comment pertaining to their return. Merchants can use this to gather more insight into the reason for return or general feedback about the return process. This setting can be useful for merchants who prefer to manually process returns, thus allowing them to get more context into why the return is being made.
7.RMA Email Notifications
This setting enables RMA notifications to the store email on file. For example when a return is created.
Best Practice:We recommend disabling this setting if you have a high volume of returns. Getting an email notification for each RMA created tends to overwhelm your inbox. Instead, we recommend that you monitor RMAs within your Manage Returns tab.
8.Non-Returnable Items
Returnly offers several options for marking a product or an order as non-returnable.For a detailed instructions please review Marking Products and Orders as Non-Returnable.
Return Settings: Shipping
1.Shipping Fees
This is where you choose who is responsible for the cost of the return. You can either have them free for the customer (your business pays for the return), or have the return fee deducted from your customer's refund. Deduct from Refund comes in 3 variations:
- Full Amount- The entire shipping fee is deducted from the refund
- Flat Fee Per Label- An amount that you set (e.g: $4) for every label generated is deducted from the refund
- Flat Fee Per Return- An amount that you set (e.g: $4) for every single return, regardless of how many shipping labels are generated are deducted from the refund
2.Shipping Carriers
You will not be able to edit the contents of this section, but it will display who your current carrier is (Returnly's USPS account is the default carrier), which countries are supported, whether you can conduct returns domestically or internationally, or if there is a special tag related to your carrier.
3.Additional Settings
- Include Packing Slip
- Cost of Shipping can Exceed Return Value
When enabled, a customer will be permitted to return a product which has refund value that is less than the cost of the label. For example - the product being returned has a refund value of $4.00, the return shipping label costs $5.00.
Alternatively, if this setting is disabled, the customer would be shown the Cost Divergence screen. More information on that here.
Return Settings: Return Reasons
When your customer selects a product for return, they will be prompted to choose the reason for which they are returning the product.
In order to create and configure return reasons based on the product that is being returned, you should first create Custom Product Types within Shopify and associate them to Products.
Return Reason Library
On your Return Reasons tab, you would be able to configure how your return reasons by product type will be displayed to your customers.
There, you will be presented with a Return Reason Library.
Note: Product types is a Shopify attribute for which Shopify merchants with a robust catalog would be able to benefit from this feature.
Best practice
- Create between 5 to 8 return reasons: Having more than that would mean your customers would need to scroll to get to their return reason.
To add a new return reason, simply click the following:
There, you will be able to create new return reasons and their respective sub-reasons, along with the capability of offering your customers exchanges and/or free shipping.
On your Return Reason Library, click the pencil to edit a reason or add sub-reasons. To delete a reason, click the trash icon.
Best practice: Our nested reasons offer the ability to further identify the reason for return. For example - if the customer chooses "Fit" as the main reason, they are then prompted with "Too Small" or "Too Large". For more information on our nested return reasons, see Setting up Nested Return Reasons.
Your Groups
Once you have created return reasons, you would need to add those to a group (either the default group or a custom created group).
| Default Group |
Return reasons shown to all product types that are not included in a Custom Group. |
| Custom Group |
Custom Groups (such as Apparel) can contain many product types (e.g. Shirts, Pants, Jackets) and many return reasons (e.g. Did not like fabric, Ripped, Too loose). |
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Product Types included in a Custom Group (e.g. Shirts included in Apparel Group) cannot be included in another Custom Group (e.g. Shirts cannot also be included in a Clothing Group) |
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To create a new group, click the following:
Considerations
- You can associate as many return reasons as you see fit to any group.
- Your customers will only see the return reasons applicable to the product type that they are returning.
- Product types can only be included in one group, not multiple.
Additional Returns Policy Resources
The additional resources below will help give you more ideas, guidelines, and inspiration for setting and creating a Return Policy that best for your business and customers. The Returns Policy Templates can get you started if you don't have a specific brand voice you'd want to convey with your customers.
