One of the biggest admin downsides of our current ecommerce system is that there is no automated method for dealing with returned items or adjusting stock. This invariably leads to errors creeping in to our inventory with the risk of disappointing customers.

It would be a real headache soother if there was a way in CT to process returns;

Common scenarios for us are:

Customer returns a product for an exchange because he ordered wrong size / colour
- returned product needs to go back into stock
- new return order must be created

Customer returns a product for a refund because he doesn’t want it
- returned product needs to go back into stock
- credit note must be created

Customer wants a refund for a faulty product
- returned product goes into quarantine
- credit note must be created

Customer wants an exchange for a faulty product
- returned product goes into quarantine
- new return order must be created

Mis-packs (when we send out the incorrect item)
- we are expecting at item back
- reserve correct item and when the incorrect item arrives back send it out

It is also really useful to have a paper trail so that a return order can be traced back to the original order.

I am sure there are other scenarios, but I am interested to know if you envisage building in this kind of functionality or consider it stuff you wouldn’t expect CT to do?

cheers Kenny

I am sure there are other scenarios, but I am interested to know if you envisage building in this kind of functionality or consider it stuff you wouldn’t expect CT to do?

It’s all useful stuff. We’ll get around to these things sooner or later. Personally, just for my own stores, I *want* some of these features.

That said though, generally my process is a bit different:

Customer returns a product for an exchange because he ordered wrong size / colour
- returned product needs to go back into stock
- order is marked as refunded
- customer needs to make new order

Customer returns a product for a refund because he doesn’t want it
- returned product needs to go back into stock
- order is marked as refunded
- note added to “notes” field in channel entry

The above, I agree would be nice to simplify. The other items you mention are more of a post-order process. One of the reasons that I haven’t gotten into that too much, is because of what a unique process it is per company… and all of the tools used to manage this process. CT can certainly be built to handle just about anything, but I have to ask the question if it’s a core thing… and order management isn’t the core thing. There are entire suites of products used to handle this level of complexity, and rather than build CT to handle this stuff, it might make more sense to integrate CT with one of those existing suites. (which we’ve done as custom projects for some of our customers)