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8 Proven Strategies to Manage Ecommerce Returns Successfully

Getting eCommerce returns is something that every online retailer or merchant faces every now and then. However, spikes in refunds and returns can be difficult to handle manually. Check out the 8 best strategies to manage eCommerce returns efficiently.

· E-commerce,Magento

Managing eCommerce returns efficiently is a big headache for online merchants or retailers. While an increase in sales can make eCommerce merchants extremely happy, a rise in product returns can equally make them unhappy. There’s no doubt that online stores bring greater profits, and there are strong reasons to support this fact. And, if you’re investing in Magento 2 development services, benefits are countless. Magento 2 is a feature-rich eCommerce platform solution that offers online merchants complete flexibility and control over the functionality of their online channel.

8 Proven Strategies to Manage Ecommerce Returns Successfully

Although Magento website development offers a plethora of benefits, there are always two sides to every story. When customers visit a brick-and-mortar store, there’s no confusion about the product. There are no possibilities of purchasing the wrong product as customers can try, hold, touch, and see what it looks like, which is not possible when buying from your Magento eCommerce store. This is why online retailers face excessive returns and it becomes quite a difficult task to manage them efficiently.
 

This post suggests the effective strategies for successful eCommerce returns management and ways to reduce the refund and exchange rate for your Magento eCommerce business.

8 Smart Ways to Manage Ecommerce Returns

1. Provide Free Return Shipping

The majority of customers would never like to pay for returning a product that is duplicate, defective, or that does not meet their expectations. Even if they had to pay for returns, they would not like to purchase again from that eCommerce store.
 

If you’ve indulged in Magento eCommerce development, it is no doubt that your shoppers are enjoying a pleasant shopping experience. But, a good shopping experience also involves the quality of your product or services as well as your customer service you deliver. To give a satisfying service, you can offer ‘free return shipping”. Customers will not have to pay a single penny for product returns. This will increase customer satisfaction with your brand.

2. Create a Transparent and Comprehensive Refund Policy

Drafting a transparent and detailed refund policy is helpful to settle any refund related issues. Being an eCommerce store owner, keeping in mind the various types of refund requests, you should consider preparing a transparent refund policy. This refund policy visible to customers will help them when requesting for a refund.

3. Turn Ecommerce Returns into an Opportunity to Improve Service

Your unhappy and dissatisfied customers can be a great source of learning. No matter how angry or frustrated your customer is due to the poor quality of your products or service, your top priority is to listen to your customer. You must talk politely and respectfully to your customer. Accepting your mistake and apologizing are the best ways to communicate and tackle the situation. You can use their feedback to improve your products and service and try not to repeat the mistake the next time.
 

You may approach a Magento website development company for online reputation management of your Magento eCommerce store. The professionals will guide you on how to improve your service.


4. Use a Store Credit System to Manage Refunds

Retaining your customers forever is crucial for a long-term profitable business. However, unfortunately, your customer has a bad shopping experience and asks for refunds, you should apologize for the mistake and can give the same worth of store credit which they can redeem on their next purchase.
 

By integrating a store credit system, you’ll not need to refund and customers will purchase again from your eCommerce store to redeem the store credit. This ultimately leads to customer satisfaction and more sales.


5. Automate Your Refund Processes

It would be quite difficult for store owners to manage the eCommerce refund process manually. The automated refund management process solves this problem.

If a customer requests a refund for a genuine reason, the refund would be done within 5-7 business days automatically. It reduces a lot of manual labor, human error, and time, and makes the refund process easier for customers as well as store owners.

You can hire Magento developer to build a custom Magento 2 refund request extension and integrate it with your Magento 2 store to allow customers to request refunds, without having to log in.


6. Focus on Safe Packaging and Shipping Process

Sometimes customers receive damaged products and therefore, request refunds. You must ensure safe packaging and fast shipping process. This reduces the chances of getting the product damaged significantly. Also, fast shipping and outstanding packaging increase the brand loyalty of your eCommerce store.


7. Auditing the Warehouse

Products are shipped from the warehouse. Even if you’ve adopted a systematic refund process, it is good to keep your eye on auditing the warehouse. By auditing your warehouse, you will come to know bottlenecks, stocks, mismanagement, packaging and shipping delays, and so on. When you focus on this key area, you can significantly improve the customer shopping experience.

If you’re involved in Magento eCommerce development and you have a warehouse management system, you can ask Magento experts to integrate the system with your Magento store to ensure seamless management.


8. Leverage Customer Reviews

Customer reviews about products or services can be used to improve your products and services. When a customer buys a product from your store, you can send the customer an email after 4-5 days requesting him/her to write a product review.


Here are some of the ways you can leverage product reviews:

  1. Allow your customers to upload an image/video of a product and write a review.
  2. Allow them to rate the product based on the star rating.

A customer may also request a refund if the product images do not match the actual purchased product. They may write a negative product review which can ruin your online reputation. If you find reviews related to such issues, you can improve the product image as well. You can hire a professional photographer who can click images of products from different angles. Doing all these will help you gain the trust of your new customer who visits your eCommerce store and checks out reviews and images of products to see what other customers have experienced after buying a product. If you’re investing in a Magento 2 development, you should consider using Magento 2 review reminder extension. The extension will send automated review reminder emails to remind customers to write reviews.

Final Thought

A good customer service before and after sale helps you get a loyal customer. Most importantly, the way you treat your customers, even after selling the product, determine the standard of customer experience. Handling refunds, exchanges, or returns is a challenging task. However, the way you react, and how you solve these situations matters the most.

If you’re into Magento website development, try implementing these strategies for return management in eCommerce to increase customer experience and satisfaction. You may always hire Magento developers for professional help in case you’re stuck with some technical stuff.