1. Connecting your store:

Connecting your store with your LateShipment.com account is an essential first step to facilitating the returns creation and resolution process. 

• Connecting your Shopify account: 

Connecting your Shopify account will take you a minute, provided you have access to your store API key and Secret key. You will find these on your Shopify account.

Simply copy and paste these details into the “Connect your store” form at https://apps.lateshipment.com/returngetstart

2. Managing Return methods: 
Managing return methods allows you to define the return methods that your shoppers can choose from, whether or not you offer return shipping labels and who bears the cost of return shipping (your business/your customer/both) for each of the methods your business supports. The available return methods include Refunds, Store credit, and Variant exchanges. 

Configuring return methods is simple. This article here walks you through it.  https://support.lateshipment.com/kb/article/127-configuring-return-methods/

Auto-generating shipping labels: Tied to configuring your return methods is also the provision to auto-generate return shipping labels. Setting this up is required only if you choose to offer return shipping labels to your shoppers. For seamless, hassle-free return experiences for your shoppers, we highly recommend you enable automatically generated return shipping labels (available under Settings against every return method).

We currently support auto-generation of shipping labels via your shipping carrier’s label generation API. This can be set up by filling out a simple form that is available to you as part of the initial setup process under Manage return methods. This form also requires filling out details of the Return address to which packages will be shipped. 

Your return address: For businesses that choose not to offer return shipping labels, simply filling out your return address will suffice. This is the address to which your shoppers would need to ship their packages back. The return address configured here would be shared as part of the return instructions sent to shoppers on initiating a return request. 

The address form is available to you as part of the initial setup process under Manage return methods.
 

3. Notifications:

Setting up automated customer notifications at key stages of the returns process ensures your customers are proactively updated about the status of their returns without any intervention from your support agents. Returns Experience Management supports both Email and SMS notifications.

Notifications may be set up in one of 2 ways:
Via our in-app notifications engine. Learn more about this.
Via integration with your existing email marketing tools (like Klaviyo and Omnisend). Learn more.

4. Return policy:

Your store’s return policy is available for your customers to view on your Return portal before they initiate a return request. You can set up your return policy as part of your initial setup process. To make this easier for you, we pre-populate your policy with a sample template for you to review and edit. 

5. Test run and go live: 

• Test run: Before you go live with your new returns process be sure to test it and see all the settings at play on your returns portal.

You can start by first manually creating a test order in your store. Then open your return portal using the link provided on your Get started screen. Find your test order by entering the details requested. Then, navigate through the various steps to initiate a return request. 
If you would like to make changes to the process, you may revisit the returns settings in your LateShipment.com account to make the needed changes. 
Once you’re satisfied with everything you have set up, you are good to take this live.

• Going live: Taking your new returns process live simply involves giving shoppers easy access to your returns portal. You could do this in multiple ways - by including a link to the returns portal on your website, and as part of your order delivery notifications. 

For businesses that use our Delivery Experience Management solution, the option to initiate a return can be offered to shoppers as a simple extension of your brand’s order tracking experience. This would ensure a truly seamless experience for your shoppers right from order tracking to initiating a return where needed, all from a single page. Enabling this option would ensure that your order tracking page will include a link to “Initiate a return” once the order has been delivered.