Contents
- Basic Definitions
- Returns: Products Dashboard
- Returns: Process Dashboard
- Returns: Shipping Dashboard
The "Returns" dashboards summarize actionable returns metrics, providing key insights around the what and why of returns -- enabling you to make strategic decisions to drive your business forward.
See "Utilizing the Analytics Dashboards" for more on navigating, filtering, and exporting data.
In this article, we'll go over the two Returns dashboards available: The Products and Process dashboards.
Basic Definitions
For these metrics, a "return" is inclusive of orders where there is:
- A refund -- original payment method or gift card ("store credit"),
- No refund,
- Returnly Credit issuance (with or without repurchase), and
- An exchange
These return types will apply per your account-specific configurations and settings at the time an return is initiated.
Returns: Products Dashboard
The first Returns dashboard is the Products Dashboard. Here, you can analyze the number of returns per product type, as well as what the return reason distribution is.
First, you'll see your overall numbers, filtered by the date selection window or time period filter you have chosen.
- Orders - Total numbers of orders your eCommerce platform has processed
- Orders with a Return - Number of orders that have at least 1 return item
- Return Rate - Calculated by dividing the total number of orders by orders with at least one return in it.
- Returns - Total number of returns, which can differ from orders with returns in it (this figure tends to be higher than Orders with a Return).
- Return Value - Total value of returns overall.
- Items Returned - Total number of items returned (this figure tends to be higher than both Orders with a Return and Returns)
Under Product Types and Return Reasons, you can see the corresponding breakdowns in a pie chart. You can click the circles next to each of the product types or reasons to hide/redisplay them in the pie chart. Hovering over each pie slice will show you the raw count.
Returns by Reason and Product type are also visualized together in a stacked bar chart. Hovering over each portion of a bar chart will reveal raw counts as well.
Under Return Rate by Product, you will see an itemized list that show more specific product attributes (Product Group Type, SKU names, external product IDs), as well as breakdowns showing how many time a product was ordered vs how many times they were returned.
Returns: Process Dashboard
The second Returns dashboard is the Process Dashboard. Here, you can analyze return value, volume, rates, and the overall efficiency of Returnly across our different products.
First, you'll see Returns by Volume, filtered by the date selection window or time period filter you have chosen.
- Orders - Total numbers of orders your eCommerce platform has processed
- Orders with a Return - Number of orders that have at least 1 return item
- Return Rate - Calculated by dividing the total number of orders by orders with at least one return in it.
- Returns - Total number of returns, which can differ from orders with returns in it (this figure tends to be higher than Orders with a Return).
- Average Return Value - Calculated by dividing the total return value by the total number of returns.
Next, you'll see the Return Volume and Return Rate Overview - this lets you see trends in return frequency broken down by week. You'll be able to correlate things like specific product releases, sales events that your business runs, and larger macro market trends have an impact on your bottom line.
Under Returns Process Overview, you'll see some more stats:
- Automated Returns - Percentage of returns that were authorized by the Returnly system automatically
- Estimated Labor Saved - Estimated number of hours saved by using Automated Returns. This is determined by measuring the cost of manual returns by 10 minute increments.
- Average Return Completion Rate - Average number of days it between authorizing and refunding a return.
- Flagged Returns - Number of returns that were late, missed delivery dates, or were refunded outside of Returnly.
- Green Returns Eligible - Percentage of returns exempt from shipping, if Green Returns are enabled.
- Manual Returns - Number of returns manually created by your business.
Next is Returns Workflow, which shows the return value in each state. This overall look can help inform problem spots in your returns process, especially if there is a lot of value "stuck" within Incomplete, Canceled by Merchant, and Missed Delivery Deadline. The bar charts can vary greatly depending on your return policy selections, and your overall business volume.
Returns: Shipping Dashboard
Returnly has an operational impact on the merchant’s business improving their operational and logistic monitoring by providing a detailed overview of their shipping analytics metrics.
These operational metrics revolve around the shipping label costs, parcels delivery along with timeframe status.
Total Shipping Costs (USD)
- Total Label Cost – Shipping: Total sum of return shipping fees during this period. When using a carrier outside of Returnly, this value may be 0.
- Total labels: Total number of used return labels during this period.
- Estimated Shipping Label Savings – Green Returns: The average amount of shipping fees saved from exempt returns. If Green Returns is not enabled, this value will be 0.
Average Delivery Time Frame
- Average Estimated Delivery Timeframe: The average estimated time it takes a return to be delivered, starting from when the return is initiated.
- Average Delivery Timeframe: The average number of days between Authorized and Delivered statuses for returns during this period.
- Average Days In Transit to Delivered: The average number of days between In Transit and Delivered statuses for returns during this period.
- Average Days Delivered to Refunded: The average number of days between Delivered and Refunded statuses for returns during this period.
- Average Days in Each Status: The average number of days a return spends in each status.
Average Shipping Costs
Per Return and per Item.
Shipping by Carrier
Highlighting average shipping cost and labels per carrier along with shipping zones.
Return Label Cost Variance
Calculates the difference between the total estimated label cost and the actual label cost by carrier.
Shipping Costs Paid by Customer
Highlighting average, minimum, and maximum cost along with customer shipping behavior during the specified period of time.
