How to Make Your eCommerce Return Process Easy

One in three online orders is returned. That’s why it’s important to have a clear return process. If you sell clothing, having a streamlined system is even more important since 40% of those purchases come back.

Why should you care if your return process is efficient? The answer is easy. A recent study by Zappo’s showed that their best customers also make the most returns.

Making Returns Easy For Your Customers

Did you know that a simple return process can influence a customer’s final decision to purchase? Putting your policy front and center could mean the difference between an abandoned shopping cart and a conversion moment.

Here are some quick tips to make returns easy for your customer:

1. Offer free return shipping. Customers expect it.
2. Make the return process easy to find.
3. Provide a return shipping label or make it simple to print one online.
4. Allow enough time for a customer to make a return.
5. Don’t charge a restock fee, it can deter potential customers.

Making Your eCommerce Return Process Easy for Your Team

It’s one thing to make the return process easy for your customers. It’s another to make it easy for your operations team. Addressing a few key areas of your warehouse’s return process can save you labor costs as well as keep customers satisfied knowing that your team is fast and efficient.

As you look at your internal operations, consider the following tips:

1. Set aside a dedicated space to handle returns.
2. Provide the tools (software systems) for the return processing staff to research and find orders. (Many returns come back with no indication of what they are.)
3. Train your staff to prep a product for resale if it’s going back into stock.
4. If you have custom packaging, like logoed packaging material, have more on hand to prepare items for resale.
5. Test your own return process.

The more you prepare and train your team and simplify your return process, the easier and faster you will become. Make the return process easy for your customers as well as for yourself and it may become one of your most valuable marketing assets.