What to do when a buyer wants to return something
If the first return request arrives before you have a rule, you decide it in the moment, while slightly annoyed, in a message to a customer who is also slightly annoyed. You end up with a different rule for every buyer, and it gets hard to say no.
Decide it once now, while nothing is at stake.
Decide three things
What you will accept back. At the least, take back anything that arrived damaged or is not what was ordered. The buyer could not check it before paying. Beyond that it is your call. Change of mind, wrong size, no longer wanted: each is a real cost to you, and you can say no, as long as you said so before the sale.
Some things reasonably cannot come back. Anything perishable, anything made to order, anything used in a way that cannot be undone. Name those specifically rather than relying on a general disclaimer.
How long they have. A short window is easier to live with than no window, because without one, a buyer can ask months later. Pick a number of days from delivery, and count from delivery rather than from the order, since delivery can be days after the order.
Who pays the return postage. If the fault is yours, you pay. If it is a change of mind and you accept those, you can ask the buyer to pay, and say so plainly. A buyer who finds this out afterwards will be unhappy about it.
Write it where it will actually be read
Buyers cannot follow a rule they have not seen. Put it on the page, in short sentences, in the same place a buyer looks for shipping information. If it lives on its own page, link to it from the product page.
Write it in plain language. Legal phrasing copied from somewhere else is hard to read.
Handling the request itself
Reply quickly, even before you have decided. A short reply tells the buyer you have seen it.
Ask for a photo. Not as an accusation. For a damaged item it tells you whether the problem was packing, the courier, or the item itself, which is information you need regardless of what you decide.
Decide against your written rule, not against your mood. Two buyers with the same problem should get the same answer. That is why it is written down.
On small amounts, say yes quickly. A week of arguing over a cheap item costs you more time than the refund is worth.
Fix the cause if there is one. If the same product comes back for the same reason more than once, check the listing against the item, sizing and colour first. Then change the listing.
Preventing them
Some returns have nothing wrong with the item. The buyer was surprised. The item was smaller than it looked, or the colour was different on a phone screen, or something the seller assumed was obvious was not.
So write the awkward detail into the product page before anyone buys. The colour varies between batches. This size runs small. Handmade, so no two are identical. It may cost you a sale now and then, and it saves you the returns that come from surprise.
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