When a customer sends items back, use Return Items to record the return. For each returned line, enter the quantity that came back and choose what happens to the stock: restock it, mark it lost, or set it aside as defective. Orders & Inventory then reduces the order, updates inventory, and issues the refund or credit.
Before You Begin
Prerequisites
- The order must be shippable. Orders that can never ship, such as registration-only orders, do not offer Return Items.
- At least one line on the order must still have quantity available to return.
- The order must not have been loaded through a bulk import. No setting or role allows you to return an imported order.
- If a returned item charges a restocking fee, the store must have a restocking fee product configured, or the full return is refused.
Return Shipped Items
- Open the order in Orders & Inventory and choose Return Items in the action row. You can also find it under Order Options.
- For each line that came back, enter the quantity in Qty to Return. The field defaults to the full quantity still available to return, up to the amount already ordered.
- Choose what happens to the stock in the Action column:
- Restock — return the quantity to inventory.
- Lost — keep the item out of stock because it is not coming back.
- Defective — count the item back into stock, but keep it flagged as unsellable.
- If the item charges a restocking fee, decide whether to waive it for that line. For details, see Charge or Waive a Cancellation or Restocking Fee.
- Answer the payment question and the gateway-refusal question, as described in Issue a Refund or Credit for a Cancellation or Return.
- Add notes if you want to record why the items came back.
- Choose Process Return.
Result
- The quantity available to return goes down by the amount you returned, and the order records the return against that line.
- Any tax and shipping charged on the returned units comes back with those units at the same quantity. Those charges do not appear as separate rows in the return.
- For a Restock or Defective action, the stock returns to the warehouse or bin the item originally shipped from. A Defective return still adds to stock counts, but those units stay out of the quantity available to sell.
- If every line on the order ends up returned, the order is marked returned. If the order has a mix of cancelled and returned lines, or still has an order-level line remaining, it is not marked returned this way.
- The refund or credit and any restocking fee are handled as described in the two related articles.
Variants
- Return Items is the only way to take a shipped order out of the shipped queue. There is no separate action that clears a shipped order from that queue without returning its items. Returning items always affects stock: the returned quantity is restocked, marked lost, or set aside as defective, depending on the action you choose.
- A returned unit's whole quantity gets one action. You cannot restock some units of a line and mark other units from the same line defective in the same return. If you need both outcomes for one line, return them in separate actions.
- A quantity above what's left to return is refused. Lower the quantity, or reload the order if someone else already returned part of the line.
- The same order line named twice in one return is refused.
If It Fails
- The order can't be returned at all. Confirm that the order is shippable, has quantity left to return, and was not loaded through a bulk import.
- "Unable to process return," naming a missing fee configuration. A returned item charges a restocking fee, but no restocking fee product is set up. Ask an administrator to configure one.
- "Unable to process return," naming a quantity that exceeds what's available. Lower the quantity, or reload the order in case it changed since you opened the dialog.