How to Refund an Order in Shopify
Shopify has been a revolutionary platform for brands and retailers looking to grow in ecommerce over the past decade.
Shopify hosts more than 500,000 stores and generated $1.58 Billion in revenue in 2019. Shopify is third in online retail, after Amazon and eBay.
But as we know, online purchases don’t always go as planned. A better returns process means happier customers.
The platform offers limited returns options.
Let’s take a look at how Shopify allows you to return or refund your order.
Shopify: How to Create a Return
Shopify lets you return at least one item from your order that is not yet fulfilled.
To create a return, the order cannot be archived. If the order is already archived, you will need to unarchive it.
These are the steps you need to take to create a Shopify return:
- Navigate to Orders from the Shopify admin page.
- Click Refund items. If your order has been archived, you can unarchive it here.
- Next, enter the quantity for each item in the order to be returned.
- Choose the right Option for return shipping :
- To create a customer’s return shipping label, choose Create a return label. This option is only available if your main address and the shipping address of the customer are both within the United States.
- Select If shipment has taken place already, you will need to enter tracking information.
- If you wish to make a return, choose No Return Shipping
- Click Create return. You will be asked to send the label if you have selected the Create a return label option.
This sounds simple enough. However, a manual return process can slow down your team and cause friction between customers as you grow your business.
Shopify merchants are increasingly turning to Return Management Solutions to automate and streamline the creation of return labels.
Shopify allows you to issue a refund
Shopify gives you the option to either refund your entire order or a portion of it.
Partial refunds can be extremely useful when a customer has purchased multiple items but only needs to return one.
Shopify allows you to cancel an order without first creating a refund. A return cannot be made after an order has been cancelled. This option should be used sparingly.
Remember that refunds cannot be issued to customers who have used the original payment method.
It can also take up to 10 business days before a customer is credited with a refund.
Shopify does not support warranty returns, exchanges, store credit or store credit by itself. You may need to look for a better returns solution if you are looking to centralize all your returns.
Shopify Returns, done right
Managing returns forms an integral part of eCommerce.
Shopify allows you to cancel an order. However, the process is not as flexible and automated as you and your customers would like.
Return platforms like ReturnLogic allow customers to create their returns and merchants can automatically enforce their returns policies to streamline their operations.
This means that customers will have fewer back-and-forth email exchanges, less manual work for customer service teams and operations teams, as well as less friction.
When the customer logged into the returns portal, the return was already created. Now it’s time to process the refund.
It is far simpler and more error-prone to process a ReturnLogic refund than to create a Return and issue a Refund in Shopify.
It’s easy to see how ReturnLogic is a better solution than the five-step manual process of creating a Shopify return.
Not all purchases work out. However, how you handle returns can make a big difference.
How can you set up Shopify to refund?
There’s good news! Shopify’s native order editing functionality can be used to create a refund. You’ll be able to restock items as part of every refund and to send an email notification to your customer. Your payment method may affect the time it takes to process your refund.
These are the two types of Shopify Refunds:
- Refund in full
- Refunds in part
A full refund is for the entire order. This refund is most common for single-item orders that the customer has rejected, such as a shirt of the wrong size. A customer can still request a full refund for multiple-item orders, such as a set of gifts that were not used.
If your customer only wants their money back for a specific item in their order, they will request a partial refund. Imagine if your customer wanted to exchange a blue dress for a red one. This Shopify exchange, or any other refund can be done through the same process that the full refund but with some adjustments.
Here’s how to return your Shopify order.
You’ll need to set up your Shopify refund.
1. Place your order
2. Click on the Refund button
3. You can use the arrows for the items that you wish to return. If you would like a full refund, ensure that all your items have been selected. If you only want a partial refund, make sure the right items are selected.
4. Make sure you verify the amount of your refund (including shipping costs) before proceeding with your refund
NOTE: Customers who paid by gift cards and other payment methods will receive a partial refund. The refund will be applied towards the gift card until the total amount is refunded. The remainder of the refund will go to other payment methods.
You have not enough funds to pay your refund
Your location and the payment service will determine your options. Shopify Payments users who don’t have sufficient funds to pay their customer’s refund will have two options. This depends on where your store is located.
- Austria, Denmark Germany, Hong Kong Ireland, Italy, Netherlands Singapore, Spain Sweden, New Zealand and Sweden: The remaining refund is deducted until the refunded amount has been covered
- United States, Canada and Australia: On the day of the payout, the balance is deducted from your bank account
You should also consider other things when using Shopify Payments
You may wonder how long it takes to issue a refund via Shopify Payments. Also, what is Shopify’s refund policy? Here are some useful information:
- The amount that you are able to refund will be deducted from your next payout
- Refunds will take between 5-10 business days to process
- It will retry within 3 business days if the negative balance payout fails.
- A negative balance may prevent you from getting a refund
- Refunds will be listed as Pending until you have a positive balance
Is there a limit on Shopify’s refund policy?
The short answer to that question is yes. Simple refunds can be done in a few clicks. More complicated refunds with Shopify are a bit more difficult.
These are some examples of situations that can make things more complicated.
- You can add a discount to a purchase of a product
- Shopify is unable to handle refunds for customers who have requested a change.
- You can request a refund on your order.
Shopify’s order-editing system doesn’t currently offer many options. Shopify cannot offer post-purchase discounts for single items. Shopify automatically discounts cannot be edited, added or removed. You can only edit your order. You can’t see any information about your order except what is shown in the refund popup.
You have two options: either start again and create a new order or search for Shopify apps that will help you accomplish the task.
You’re done searching!
Edit Order by Cleverific gives you more options to get your Shopify discount or refund. Edit Order lets you make all of the Shopify native edits, such as changing quantities or adding or subtracting items. You also have other options, like reordering items and changing colors and sizes.
Edit Order lets you make all the edits, and then automatically add a refund to your order if the price is changed. After purchase, you can also make discounts in dollars or percentages.
