Returns process for online shops: step by step from request to refund

A customer orders a jacket in two sizes, keeps one and sends the other back. To her, that is one action. To you, it is six: she requests the return, she needs a label, the parcel arrives at your warehouse, someone inspects the jacket, someone books it back into stock, someone triggers the refund. If nobody owns one of those steps, or nobody knows what to do at it, the case ends up in your support inbox: “I sent the jacket back two weeks ago and still have no money.”

The volume is not a side issue. According to the Research Group Returns Management at the University of Bamberg, nearly one in four parcels shipped in German B2C e-commerce is returned (24.1 %), and the group expected around 550 million return parcels for 2025. Even if your shop sits far below that rate, returns are, alongside delivery questions, among the most common reasons customers write to you.

This article is the hub for everything to do with returns. It walks through the process in six steps and, for each one, names the legal minimum, what customers usually expect, and the point where support time gets lost. Each step has its own detailed article, linked where it fits.

Why the returns process is a support topic

Most shops treat returns as logistics. That is half the truth. Every step the customer cannot see or understand generates an email. And return emails are less pleasant than delivery questions, because at that moment the customer is waiting for their money.

What lands in a typical inbox about returns:

• “How do I send this back?” (the request form cannot be found or is too complicated)
• “I need a return label.” (the label never arrived or does not exist)
• “Has my parcel reached you?” (no receipt signal)
• “When will I get my money?” (no information about timing)
• “I got the refund, but €4.90 is missing.” (return shipping was deducted without being clear up front)

Five types of request, five points in the process. A good returns process answers each of these questions before it is asked. That is the standard to measure the following steps against.

How much complexity hurts is shown by a Bitkom survey from June 2025: 49 % of online shoppers have at some point kept a product because returning it was too complicated. That sounds like good news for the merchant at first. It is not. Someone who keeps a product out of frustration does not order again.

Step 1: The return request

The process does not start in the warehouse. It starts the moment the customer decides to send something back. This is where you set the course for everything that follows.

What the law requires

Under Section 355 German Civil Code (BGB), consumers have a 14-day right of withdrawal on distance contracts. The withdrawal has to be declared clearly, no reason is required, and sending the declaration in time is enough to meet the deadline. So you cannot make a form mandatory if it makes withdrawing harder. A customer who emails “I want to withdraw from order 1234” has withdrawn. Anything you offer beyond the law is goodwill; the difference is explained in Right of withdrawal vs. goodwill.

What customers expect

Customers expect to start a return themselves without writing to anyone. A returns portal works best: enter order number and email, select the items, give a reason, done. The return reason is optional for the customer but mandatory for you, because without reasons you can never lower your rate. According to the EHI study 2025, only 29.5 % of surveyed merchants capture return reasons in a fully automated way; 34.4 % capture them manually.

Where support time disappears

If there is no portal, every return is an email. And each of those emails needs at least two replies: one with instructions, one with confirmation. This is the most expensive mistake in the whole process, because it repeats with every order.

Step 2: Check the rules and decide

Not every return is the same. Before a label goes out, it should be clear: is the deadline met? Is the item returnable at all? Does a special rule apply?

Typical rules a shop should define:

1. Deadline. By law, 14 days from receipt of the goods. Many shops voluntarily extend this to 30 days or more, which customers expect according to the Bitkom survey mentioned above: 68 % consider a longer period than the legal one important.
2. Exceptions. Sealed hygiene products once opened, personalised goods, perishable products. You have to name these exceptions in your withdrawal information beforehand.
3. Condition. Tried on is fine, worn is not. What you demand here has to stay within the law.
4. Goodwill cases. Loyal customer, small order value, day 15 instead of day 14. What you do here is your decision, but it should be made once, not every time.

This is how it works at Humane: these rules live in the business rules engine. When a return request arrives by email, the agent checks deadline, item and goodwill rule against the order data from Shopify and writes the reply accordingly. A case on day 13 gets a different answer than one on day 40, without anyone looking anything up. Anything that is not clear-cut lands as a draft for approval.

Step 3: Label and the way back

The customer has made the request, the rule is checked. Now they need a way to get rid of the parcel. Three questions decide effort and satisfaction:

• Who prints the label? A PDF by email is the standard. A QR code for the parcel shop is better, because not everyone has a printer.
• Who pays return shipping? Under Section 357 (5) BGB, you may charge the consumer the direct cost of returning the goods if you informed them about it beforehand. Most merchants cover it anyway. The maths is in Who pays return shipping.
• Which carrier? The customer wants the one around the corner. Offering more than one costs you contract effort but saves emails of the “the nearest drop-off point is 20 minutes away” kind.

What the label email should contain: the label or code, the deadline for sending it back, the address (as text too, in case the label does not load), what happens once the parcel reaches you, and how long the refund takes. This one email replaces the questions from steps 4 and 6.

Step 4: Receipt and inspection

The parcel comes back. From the customer's point of view, the critical phase starts now: they no longer have the goods and do not yet have the money. Every day without a signal is a day they wonder whether the parcel arrived.

What has to happen internally:

1. Record the receipt. Link the return tracking to the order. In Shopify, this works via the return function on the order or through an app.
2. Check the condition. Complete, undamaged, tags attached? This is where it is decided whether the refund is full or a compensation question arises.
3. Back to stock or set aside. Goods that can be resold should go back into inventory immediately. Otherwise they are missing from the next sale.

What the customer should see: an email saying “Your return has arrived, we are checking it and will refund within X days.” This email is the second most effective inbox reducer after the label email. Without it, the customer asks by the third day after the delivery scan at the latest.

A word on fraud: the vast majority of returns are honest. Patterns like repeatedly worn goods or empty parcels deserve a look, but not at the expense of every other customer. How to spot patterns without becoming suspicious of everyone is covered in Detecting return fraud.

Step 5: Decision: refund, exchange or voucher

The default assumption is: return means money back. Legally that is true for withdrawal, but not for every case. If the jacket was just one size too big, the customer wants the jacket, not the money.

Three outcomes a process should know:

• Refund. The standard case for withdrawal. Under Section 357 (3) BGB, you have to refund via the same payment method the customer used, unless they expressly agree to something else.
• Exchange. Same item in a different size or colour. You keep the revenue, the customer skips a new order. Requirements: the replacement is in stock and the exchange can be started in the portal in one step. More in Exchange instead of refund.
• Voucher. Only as an offer, never as a requirement. A voucher instead of a refund is not permitted for withdrawals without the customer's consent.

The customer should make this decision at the request stage, not you after receipt. Then the warehouse already knows when unpacking whether a new shipment goes out.

Step 6: Trigger and confirm the refund

The last step is where most complaints arise, because here expectation and reality are furthest apart.

The deadlines

Under Section 357 (1) BGB, what was received has to be returned within 14 days at the latest; for you, the period runs from receipt of the withdrawal declaration. Under Section 357 (4) BGB, you may withhold the refund until you have received the goods back or the customer has provided proof of shipping. In practice this means: as soon as the parcel is with you, the refund should go out within a few days, not at the end of the period.

Then there is the banking side. According to the Shopify Help Center, Shopify Payments marks a refund as “Pending” for up to two business days, and depending on the customer's bank it can take up to ten business days for the amount to arrive. That is the number that has to be in your confirmation email. If you write “refund issued” without naming the bank timing, you get the next email after three days. The details on payment methods, partial refunds and wording are in Refunds: when, how fast, by which route.

The confirmation

A good refund email contains four things: the amount, the payment route, the date it was issued and the bank timing. If something was deducted (return shipping, compensation for loss in value), it is listed with a reason. Nothing produces an angry reply as reliably as an amount that is smaller than expected with no explanation.

This is how it works at Humane: refunds run with approval. The agent prepares the case, with amount, reason and payment route from Shopify, and a person approves it. The reply to the customer then automatically names the amount and the bank timing. Anyone with the “approve refunds” permission in the helper portal can take that over; everyone else only sees the case.

The metrics you measure the process by

A returns process is never finished. Four numbers show you where it sticks:

• Return rate by category, not just overall. Benchmarks by industry are in Return rates in Germany 2026. How to lower the rate is in Reduce your return rate: 9 measures.
• Share of return tickets among all support requests. If it does not drop clearly after introducing the portal, one of the emails from step 3, 4 or 6 is missing.
• Cycle time from request to refund. The customer measures this number even if you do not.
• Cost per return. According to EHI 2025, 53.3 % of surveyed merchants calculate handling costs of up to €10 per returned item, 13.9 % up to €20. Work out your own once, including the support minutes.

A worked example, as an assumption: 1,000 orders a month, a 20 % return rate, that is 200 returns. If each return without a portal triggers two support emails on average, that is 400 emails. With a portal and the three standard emails from this article, maybe a quarter of that remains, and those are the cases where something is actually unclear.

What automation can do here and what it cannot

The returns process is a rewarding field for automation, because most steps are rule-based: check the deadline, generate the label, confirm receipt, prepare the refund. A support agent that sees the order in Shopify and knows the rules can fully answer the standard return requests.

What it should not do: decide on goodwill in an individual case when no rule exists for it; trigger a refund without approval; fob off a customer who is writing for the third time with a standard reply. These cases belong to a person, and a good process makes sure they reach one instead of sitting in a queue.

What you can do now

1. For one month, count the return emails in your inbox and assign them to the six steps. The step with the most emails is your first project.
2. Write the three standard emails: label email, receipt email, refund email. Each with deadline, timing and what happens next.
3. Write your rules down once: deadline, exceptions, goodwill, who approves refunds.
4. Offer the exchange at the request stage, before the refund option appears.
5. Measure the share of return tickets again after four weeks.

If you want to see how return requests disappear from your inbox with rules, order data and approval: try it free for 14 days, no credit card required.