7 Tips for Hassle-Free Returns and Refunds this Holiday Season

When it comes to returns and refunds, research shows that at least 30% of all e-commerce orders end up being returned, as against just 8.89% of brick and mortar orders.

Handling returns and refunds is always the dreading phase for every retailer and when we compare e-commerce with brick-mortar store, e-commerce stores have significantly have higher rate of returns. Considering the huge eCommerce market in USA, retailers can expect a proportionately larger returns and exchanges especially during holiday season.

The Factors that Contribute Towards Returns Are:-

• Products not matching online descriptions
• Wrong item shipped out
• Items damaged in transit
• Problems with fit/ product quality/ color
• Customer no longer want the product
• Fraudulent returns

Holiday season being peak time for sales as well as online returns, online retailers need to thinks of the ways to minimize the returns while making the whole process of product returns hassle-free. Use these tips for stress free holiday returns and refunds.

• Optimize the content on your product page: One of the biggest problems of online shopping is customer get something else than what was actually show-cased on the website. Avoid such problems by optimizing the product content in a way that does justice to your products; make sure that your title, descriptions and bullet points are precisely described. Don’t forget product images; check thrice that they are showing the correct item and color matching your product’s attribute to all those channel you’re listing and so on. If any product data is causing confusion, figure it out to describe it in a better way. This will ultimately reduce the returns and will even help you in better visibility on search engines and marketplaces.
• Ask your shoppers to leave reviews: Positive reviews of the customers will help other buyers to build trust and credibility for your brand and hence they are able to make informed purchased decision. During holidays, you can encourage shoppers by providing reward points – after all it takes effort to write the review so, receiving some of reward is likely to add positive experience. When shoppers know what to expect from the product, from first time users, the rate of handling return can be dropped off substantially. Knowing the most common reason helps to optimize the process of returns and refunds and also helps to improve overall performance of your store. By gathering a more detailed description from customers who are returning items, they can determine which parts of the buying process need to be enhanced.
• Make your return policy easy to understand: When it comes to returns and refunds in holiday season, try avoiding ‘one size fits all’ approach and based on your target audience and the products you sell; customize your return policy. Whether your customers are checking the policy before purchase, or finding out how to return an item they’ve just received, the drafted policy must be clear and concise. Make it easy to understand as your goal is to ensure that your buyers are satisfied with your experience. Other than that, easily understandable policy with the proper keywords also helps to improve your search results. Follow these tips to keep your return policy smart and simple:
  • Don’t use hard to understand phrases
  • Use keywords to help your customers understand the process and find information that’s relevant to them
  • Repeat your promises
  • Avoid using “scary” phrases like “unless”, “only if” or “you must”
• Clearly outline the expectations: Your customer wants to know what they can expect when they return an item. Some of the common expectation of customers:
  • Will they get refund?
  • Will they get any alternative product?
  • In how much duration will they get their money back?

Some of the marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart do brush up their return policy especially for holiday season. The choice is up to you and nature of business but keeps your expectations clear, do not keep your customer guessing or wondering!

• Offer competitive return deadlines: Providing longer return period than the legal minimum increases the confidence of your customers. It portrays that, you believe in providing real value to your customers and this increases the chance of making sale especially during holidays. It is always a good idea to specify separate deadlines for new and used times for certain product categories. As per the research, longer return deadline actually decreases the rate of returns and refunds because they believe that longer the customer possesses an item, the more attached to it they get and hence, they are less likely to return the product.
• Automate your returns management system: When it comes to product returns and refunds in holidays, many online retailers ask to contact via mails which leads to the loss of information, understanding and consequently prolonged return process. Automated tools and centralized system can reduce the time to process the returns and refunds and increase accuracy, ensuring that a customer receives their refunds as fast as possible. Real-time reporting tools monitor the status of returns so that customer can avoid roadblocks and barriers and provide the information that they look for during the entire process.
• Promote exchanges over returns: Customers are not satisfied with the purchase because they might have ordered different color or the wrong size. In such scenario, it is always a good idea to exchange the product. Consider offering better deal for those who are just making exchanges; this impact your balance sheet to a far lesser degree than an outright return does during holiday season.

The conclusion

To reduce returns and refunds, make sure your store is well structured and information is easy to find including return policy which should be highlighted on every page. If you are truly customer focused, don’t create any barrier at any point, especially if they are looking for return. It is always better to opt for an automated order management system to make returns hassle-free.

eSellerHub is one of the inventory management software that enables tracking of your orders, provides full or partial order cancellations, hassle-free returns and refunds processing, and much more. This helps to save time and enables to focus on your core business. We believe that every business is different and hence put major focus on the business needs to carve out the software that is tailor made for you.