Offer customers self-service returns

3 March 2025 | Cate

When shopping online, people want convenience and simplicity. Traditional return processes can be time-consuming and frustrating, leading to long wait times, complicated policies, and unnecessary hassle for both customers and businesses.

By providing self-service return requests, customers can manage returns on their own terms, enhancing the overall shopping experience and increasing their trust in the business. It also helps to streamline the order workflow, making the whole returns process easier to manage and reduces errors.

Please note, self-service return requests is only available on V2 sites. You will need to upgrade to V2 in order to use this feature, if you're site is still on V1.

Setting up self-service returns
From the customer's point of view
Managing self-service returns
Processing returns

Setting up self-service returns

Once an order has been shipped, you can allow customers to submit a returns request via their order. Within their order they can select which products they wish to return and choose from a list of set reasons. To switch this feature on, do the following.

In Settings > Settings > Orders tab > Customer Requests section, tick Enable Customer Return Request.
In Return Request Window (days), set the number of days after the order has been shipped that the customer can ask a question.

Settings for self-service returns requests

By default, the list of reasons for returning that the customer can choose from are set as:

The order arrived too late
Some items are not what I ordered
Some items are damaged
Some items are faulty
I made a mistake with my order
I've changed my mind

The text of these can be changed to anything you wish within the Your Account section of each language in Settings > Languages. To remove a reason entirely, simply delete the text in the field, so it is blank, and save. This reason won't then appear.

Edit returns reasons in Languages

From the customer's point of view

Understanding how the process is viewed by your customers will help you decide how you would like it to work on your online shop. We've kept it as simple as possible to ensure customers don't get frustrated and end up contacting you via phone or email, which would defeated the object. If you make any changes, always keep simplicity and clarity in mind.

Once the customer has accessed their order, they will see a Request a Return button next to the Ask a Question button, if you're using this feature and the number of days to allow them to ask a question hasn't surpassed.

Once they click on the Request a Return button, they are shown the Request a Return page. Here, they can tick the product(s) they wish to return, then select from the list of reasons in the Reason for Return drop-down and enter a message into the Message field, if needed. Once they're done, they can click on the Send Request button at the bottom.

Select which products you'd like to return and the reason

Managing self-service returns

Email notifications

All returns requests will send an email to you, the site owner, automatically. By default, these will go to the Default Email Address set in Settings > Settings > Website tab.

If you wish for these emails to go to another email address, such as a dedicated one for customer service, you can specify this in the Email Addresses field in Settings > Settings > Order tab > Customer Requests section. Multiple email addresses must be separated with a comma.

Please note, if you're using Customer Questions, the email notifications for these will also go to the same email address(es) you specify here.

Within Orders

Once a returns request has been made on an order, you will see the Customer Comments icon appear next to their name within Orders. You can hover over this icon to see the message or click into the order to view the comments within the Order Processor. Additionally, for those syncing order details with an external system, these comments can be exported via the Order CSV export, and can also be sent via our API.

Spot returns requests and order questions in Orders with the Customer Comments icon

The message will show the recorded time of when the returns request was sent, which reason they chose, which SKUs they are referring to, and the message they included.

View the returns request or order question in the Order Processor

Order statuses

Once the returns request has been made, Bluepark will automatically set the order to Pending, if it isn't set as this already. This then alerts your team that action is required on the order, within the Orders section, because the icon colour will change.

If you wish to make this even easier for those processing orders, you can set custom order statuses for when this occurs. To do this, follow our How to create custom order statuses guide to create your own and streamline your order workflow.

Use custom order statuses for cutomer order questions and returns requests

Once you've created your custom order statuses, you can choose which one should be triggered for the returns request. This is done by setting the relevant order status within the Custom Status for Order Returns drop-down in Settings > Settings > Order tab > Customer Requests section.

Processing returns

Once you've received the products the customer has returned, you will need to process the return within their order. Our How to Process Returns & Refunds guide explains the different processes for this based on what they are returning, i.e. some of the order or all of the order.