Nowadays, consumers are connected and informed about different shopping options they can evaluate. Everything now lies in their hands as they can make or mar an online store. When they are unsatisfied with a particular product, they don’t hesitate to return the product.
For eCommerce store owners, managing product returns can be a complex process that can create a crack in your business. To ensure you handle eCommerce return appropriately, we have compiled essential practices or strategies to manage eCommerce returns effectively without losing your customers.
Create a clear and suitable return policy
Oftentimes, most returned products are due to a lack of understanding of the return policy. When preparing your eCommerce return policy, write in a conversational and friendly tone that everyone can understand.
Setup fraud prevention
With the rise of online shopping has also lead to increasing return fraud. Return fraud could be when a customer buys a product and returns it to get financial benefit. It affects your business as you lose money and inventory. To avoid this, you need to set up a fraud prevention system that deals with such situations.
You can identify if your business is a victim of fraud return when you receive higher returns than normal, excessive inventory loss, and shrinking margins because of increased returns.
Optimize product image and description
You won’t want your customers to take a leap of faith when shopping online. Remember, they can’t physically see or touch these products, and the only way they can get a feel of it is through the images and description.
To avoid returns, ensure to optimize your product image and description. Get a high-quality camera or hire a professional to produce quality images. Furthermore, you can employ a writer to write a good description for each product.
Use automation to avoid mistakes
Another effective strategy to handle eCommerce returns is to automate the process to avoid mistakes. Businesses must account for the cost of items sent to a vendor along with the human capital that goes into it. Return can be more effective if the process is automated instead of outsourcing or doing it through the manual process.
Therefore, to minimize returns, you should set up a standard process that handles returns. This will genuinely help in streamlining the return process. You can use a chatbot, tracking data, or scan-based return labels to quickly reenter any returned product.
Encourage exchanges over returns
Instead of just returning the product, you can offer exchange or store credit to help cut return rates while creating new opportunities to increase your sale. Furthermore, this strategy allows you to minimize the monetary loss of returns while improving customer experience.
Ask for reviews and feedbacks
To deal with future returns, you can ask customers to provide feedback and reviews on why they are returning the product. Through this, you can minimize future events and enhance a better customer experience.
For instance, most customers will return a product because it doesn’t fit what they expected. Therefore, through their reviews and feedbacks, you can provide better sizing on your product pages.
