Offer Hassle-Free Returns This Holiday Season With ShipStation’s Returns Portal

Published on September 1, 2023
Written by
Filed under Shipping News
Read time 5 Minutes

Returns are an unfortunate part of any ecommerce business. No one wants to do returns. Customers have an item that doesn’t fit their needs. They hurt a business’s bottom line. However, having a seamless strategy for printing return labels is a great way to cut down on processing time and find the most cost-effective ways for your customers to return their items. 

Given that a return policy can directly influence whether or not shoppers decide to buy from you, it’s important to optimise returns as much as possible leading up to the holiday season. Your shipping strategies directly impact consumer satisfaction and their decision to purchase again in the future. However, consumers don’t always separate the carrier function from your brand’s function.

In fact, 77% of consumers say that a negative delivery experience negatively impacts their impression of the retailer rather than the carrier – even if it’s a result of the carrier’s error. From the customers’ perspective, the two most important elements to a positive returns experience relate to cost, and how easy it is for them.

How to Cater to Consumer Expecatations

According to our research, 72% of consumers say a return policy directly impacts their final purchasing decision, while 60% factor the costs of returns into buying decisions more than they did pre-COVID. Because of this, you’ll want to clearly communicate your return policies. 

The faster and more effectively you set the customer expectations, the quicker they will commit. A quick turnaround process is a better experience for the consumer but also gets the unwanted product back into stock and available to sell. In order to give our users more tools for success, ShipStation offers a branded returns portal that helps you save time and streamlines your customers’ returns experience.

Using ShipStation’s branded returns portal you can customise confirmation, tracking, and delivery confirmation emails to be sure the return policy is included in each email you send to update customers.

Consumers increasingly want to avoid contacting customer service to initiate returns. In fact, 85% of consumers expect returns to be self-service, while 81% of customers prefer for retailers to either offer pre-printed labels or to allow them to print return labels at home.

Self-service returns are a favorite among customers. Instead of having to deal with long wait times or waiting for you or someone on your team to generate and send them the label, you give them the option to create the return label without reaching out to you. Or, at most, they get email authorization containing a link to initiate the return.

Instead of creating return labels in advance or handling it yourself, save time and automate returns according to your return policy. Let your customers do the work and search for their orders in your returns portal.

Providing your customers with flexibility when returning packages, especially when they’re out and about during the busy holiday season, will leave a lasting impression and encourage loyalty to your brand.

Your customers can select items they want to return, enter return reasons, and print the return label. Creating easy returns through your site brings you one step closer to getting more sales and conversions.

Other returns management solutions out there can cost you hundreds of dollars a month, but the branded returns portal is included in the ShipStation subscription for free.

 Here’s how you can set this up!

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