Manage Retail Eommerce Returns

November 24, 2021 by Maria Fagerland Leave a Comment

Developing a robust returns management process is vital to success in online product sales. When product returns are integrated closely with shipping technology and software, lost time and money from processing returned products are minimized. More than 60% of American customers surveyed by comScore and UPS checked the return policies of online stores before making a purchase. 

Educating customers about your return policy alone can drive substantial return on investment. The same study by UPS and comScore showed that more than 45% of American customers would shop more with retailers that offer a return policy that aligns with their expectations—hassle-free and frictionless.

Your business, however, remains at a loss. Shipping costs, reputation damage, and other impacts have always been a problem for eCommerce sellers. You can’t avoid the need for clear and customer-centric return and refund policies. You should, however, build those policies carefully and communicate them clearly. Consider the following suggestions:

• Put transparency first: Never hide your policy, hoping customers won’t see it. If the policy is hard to find, you’re likely to lose out on more revenue than you could ever gain by preventing the returns. 
• Educate your staff: Staff members must know your return policies to assist customers effectively and implement these policies properly. 
• Set Customers’ expectations: Provide different options for payments and shipping, clear information regarding shipping timelines, and clear details for how customers should anticipate interacting with your business. 
• Be prepared to accept any consequences. If a product is shipped incorrectly, invest the time and make an extra effort to keep customers happy.
• Speak In basic English: It’s important for return and refund policies to be clearly communicated to everyone, regardless of cultural background or education level.

How It Works

ShipWorks provides software to automate the process of printing USPS, FedEx, UPS, and other carriers’ return shipping labels when processing shipments. The ShipWorks support team will guide you through enabling this feature as well as setting up return shipping profiles. This empowers your business to automatically email your return label to customers as needed.

Manage Online Returns Better

• Minimize Errors

The returns process is challenging because it can be easy for errors to infiltrate the process. Products are easily misplaced and mislabeled upon return in some cases. Warehouse managers can employ ShipWorks’ Quality Assurance feature to reduce the number of errors in picking and packing for returns processes. 

• Enhance the Return Experience

Many online retailers struggle with managing returns effectively. Warehouse managers are able to minimize costs and enhance the product return experience with ShipWorks Best Rate Tool. Finding the lowest shipping rate costs that also fit shipping delivery timelines empowers businesses to maximize their returns experience. 

• Reduce Returns Processing Time

Supply chain complexity often increases return processing turnaround times. ShipWorks provides a feature that automates the return label printing process. By employing this process, warehouse managers and ecommerce store owners can save both time and money in the long run. 

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ShipWorks Partners

Why ShipWorks?

Improving customer experience, automating warehouse operations, and formalizing returns processes allow businesses to generate incredible yield increases on their capital investments. When eCommerce and other online businesses ship smarter without working harder, they are able to create growth from money and reinvest the time that workers would have otherwise spent on menial tasks into more productive options. 

ShipWorks Integration Features

• Ship Smarter

Route orders from multiple locations in order to optimize your inventory placement, plug us into your existing ERP, WMS, or other systems to supercharge your effort-benefit ratio. We’ll help you focus on shipping with custom automation workflows and other features while you push orders out faster than ever, with no downtime. 

• Consolidate Channels & Systems

Integration is core to everything we do. We employ over 100 direct integrations, many of which are Open DataBase Connections (ODBCs) to ensure that your systems come online as fast as possible. You shouldn’t have to switch service providers, ERPs, or anything else to consolidate systems. We aim to reduce your total number of interaction channels and save you time. 

• Reduce Costs

Software should optimize your business through cost savings, profit increases, and direct time savings. We’ve designed our suite of SaaS features to do all of these things. We seek to reduce your costs so you can spend more on growth, where your dollars truly belong. We want to be your partner, not just another vendor. Plus, our exclusive carrier discounts can save you up to 62%!

• White-Glove Customer Support

ShipWorks differentiates itself through industry-leading customer service. We don’t just pass you off to an IVR tree, a foreign call center, or an automated system. When you call, we have an expert support agent waiting for you, 24/7. We believe in the power of people, augmented with the efficiency of automation—not replaced by it.