How to Make Sure Returns Don’t Ruin Your Business

In eCommerce you need to keep your customer happy. This means fulfillment of orders needs to be quick, offering free delivery, and providing great service. One area that should not be overlooked though is how you handle product returns. 

Returns can be problematic for eCommerce businesses, but they are essential. If the process is not correctly managed, you can ruin your reputation and your brand. 

But returns are an essential part of the business. If you manage them well, they won’t be a problem that you need to worry about. 

Here’s how to make sure returns don’t ruin your business. 

Online shopping is huge. It’s predicted that by 2021 over 2.1 billion people will buy online. But it’s a massive sector, and you need to compete with so many other online retailers. To do this, you need to offer the best service on your returns. 

Offer Free Returns

Shoppers are savvy. 67% of online shoppers check the returns policy before they buy. If you don’t offer a returns policy that stands up to their needs, they won’t buy. 

Most customers will expect free returns, however, many online retailers don’t offer free returns. If there is a restocking fee, it can put people off making a purchase in the first place. 

So, to increase sales, offer free returns.  

Make sure that your free returns are only valid within a specified time frame. 

Understand Why Goods Are Returned

There are several reasons that customers make returns. Reasons range from damaged goods, picking errors, wrong sized clothing, faulty items, the product not matching the description, and the customer changing their mind.

Understand the main reasons for customer returns in your business and adapt your operations to minimize returns in these areas. 

Create A Straight Forward Returns Policy

The less complex you can make your return policy, the easier it will be to follow. Customers will be put off by a returns policy that is unclear, has grey areas, or is hard to understand. 

Don’t try to be too formal with the way the policy is written. Make it user friendly. 

Be specific with any instructions, however, avoid using heavily worded instructions. 

Lay out what the customer can expect at every stage of the returns process. The more informed they are, the more assured they will feel. 

Position your returns policy in an easy to find place on your website and link to it from several key places. Make sure that your returns policy is unique to your company. 

Develop The Reverse Logistics Aspect Of Your Supply Chain 

Work at improving efficiency in the way that returns are managed within your supply chain by investing energy and resources into reverse logistics. 

Work out what needs to happen at every stage of a return; getting the item from the customer, checking it, processing the return on your system, and then restocking, recycling, or returning the product to the manufacturer. 

During this stage of the process, record as much information as possible about the returns. Look for patterns and adjust your manufacturing or buying accordingly. Keeping an eye on the stock getting returned will allow you to act quickly should you ever need to issue a full recall. 

For assistance in managing the returns in your supply chain, get in touch with ShipJoy today.