Returns management system for online stores

A return looks like a single action from the outside: the customer sends the item back, the store refunds the money. In practice it’s a dozen or so small steps scattered across an inbox, a courier’s panel, a spreadsheet and a warehouse. A returns management system ties those steps into one process.

What a returns management system is

It’s a tool that carries a return request from the moment the customer submits it through to settlement. It’s responsible for four things: accepting the request, deciding whether it’s valid, the parcel’s journey back to the store, and staying in touch with the customer along the way.

It’s often called an RMA system, from the English “Return Merchandise Authorization”. It’s the same thing, described in industry language.

Why a store needs a dedicated tool

Up to a point, an inbox and a spreadsheet are enough. The problem shows up once returns pile up and start getting lost in three places at once.

• Requests arrive through different channels. Email, a form, a marketplace message. Each channel carries a different set of data and a different history.
• No one knows where a given case stands. The question “has that parcel arrived yet” means checking the courier’s panel, then the warehouse.
• Deadlines run whether or not anyone remembers them. The customer has a statutory 14 days to withdraw from the contract, and the store has its own deadlines for settlement.
• Knowledge lives in one person’s head. When that person is out, returns stall.

A dedicated tool doesn’t solve this through “automation” in the abstract, but by giving you one place where every case and its status is visible.

Who it’s for, and who it isn’t

It’s useful if you sell on more than one channel, handle dozens of returns a month or more, and handling them takes real team time. The more channels you have, the bigger the difference, because every marketplace runs its own process.

It’s not useful if you get a handful of returns a month and sell on one channel. The platform’s built-in tool is enough, and a new system would be a cost without a payoff.

What such a system does day to day

• Accepts the customer’s request with no account to create and nothing to print.
• Checks the rules that apply for a given sales channel: whether the deadline has passed, whether the product is eligible for return, what else to ask the customer.
• Issues a return label or a shipping code, so the customer doesn’t have to find a courier on their own.
• Tracks the parcel on its way back and shows how many shipments are heading to the warehouse.
• Keeps the conversation with the customer in one thread, together with the case history.
• Hands the case to the warehouse for receiving and verifying the item.

How this looks in RetJet

RetJet collects requests from every connected sales channel into one dashboard. You set the rules separately for each channel: how many days the customer has to submit a request, how many days the case has to be resolved in, what to ask in the form, and what happens when a condition isn’t met.

The customer submits a request through a form, picks a shipping method and gets a code they don’t have to print. The parcel is visible in transit, so the warehouse knows in advance what to expect. All correspondence stays with the request, so the next person on the team doesn’t have to reconstruct it.

We describe the individual pieces separately: one dashboard for all requests, shipment monitoring and requesting and sending returns without printing.

Returns aren’t the same as warranty claims

It’s worth separating two things that run down the same track in many stores. Withdrawing from a contract within 14 days and claiming a defective product have different deadlines, a different legal basis, and a different process. We write about that separately, on the warranty claims management system page.

Where to start

Start by counting how many returns you handle a month, and how many of them come from channels other than your own store. If the second number matters, the biggest difference will come from gathering every request in one place. You can connect your store and check this against your own returns.