Time for Product Returns Season
Now that the outbound shipping season is drawing to the close for retailers, it's time to gear up for product returns season.
Shipwire recently put out a press release for some helpful tips and recommendations to get your business ready for product returns; but, the Practical E-commerce readers probably want some fresh tidbits of advice to keep your business thriving this holiday season.
The bulk of these thoughts are going to be more applicable for e-commerce merchants that have a warehouse or work with an outsourced warehouse. I will mention that if you have a brick-and-mortar store, returns can be a great up-sell or cross-sell opportunity. As an e-commerce merchant, returns can also be a great way to up-sell or cross-sell provided you make returns easy and the buyers want to shop from you again.
If you use an outsourced fulfillment warehouse the reality is that warehouse providers will start getting deluged with returns starting about now and this will continue through January. To a warehouse all the packages look the same. Trailers of boxes from FedEx, UPS, USPS and other small parcel carriers will be backing up to the loading dock doors.
As a merchant you can save yourself a lot of hassles and ensure your products are re-stocked quickly by working with buyers. Some thoughts:
- Clearly label any returns.
- Make sure your customers send the returns back in safe packaging. Consider providing return packaging and shipping for high value items. You don't want a buyer wrapping an expensive product in a brown paper back and hoping it survives.
- Make sure there is an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization, your pre-approval for the return shipment) number for the warehouse on the outside of the box and inside the box.
- Short and concise return reasons on the outside and inside of the box.
- Make sure that the products have SKU's noted on the box and the product.
- If a buyer sends a return back to the warehouse without proper labeling, don't expect it to be quickly discovered. It will likely sit in the "unknown returns" pile until after the heat of the holiday returns season is over and it can be sifted through.
If you have product that can't be re-stocked (opened, damaged, used and returned), consider just letting the buyer keep it (make sure they acknowledge the value that you have given them) or have it shipped back to your home office and not to your fulfillment provider. If the warehouse can't restock it; you may not want it in the warehouse anyway. If you are using an overseas warehouse, this may not be an option for you; so confirm with your warehouse the proper product flagging for damaged returns; this way you can have all your damaged returns freighted back to you at once from your overseas facility.
Consider checking your return processes and policy with your fulfillment warehouse ASAP if you haven't already done so.
Feel free to check out more returns handling advice at our shipping blog.
Many happy returns!
Nate Gilmore, Shipwire product fulfillment, warehouses in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Free trial
1 Comment
John Lindberg says:
Excellent advice Nate...
The only thing I can add is a reminder to book publishers that routing returns directly to your own office provides a source of review copies and Amazon used book sales as most book returns are no longer in mint condition for re-sale. Likewise, nutraceutical products are best returned directly to the merchant as resale is unsafe due to the risk of tampering.
John Lindberg - President
EFULFILLMENT SERVICE
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