Defining the right way to charge for delivery and your returns policy can be a complex problem. It will have a huge impact on how successful your store is and how many orders you receive.
Shipping and Returns Solutions For Your store Before your first order, you must decide how to distribute your products. In this helpsheet, we’ll help you to choose shipping options that give your customers a great shopping experience through checkout.If you sell products that do not require shipping, you may can skip this step on checkout. The two methods for distribution are in-store pickup, shipment via postal or delivery service
Define your shipping strategy for postal or delivery service.You need to plan the shipping strategy for your store. Keep in mind that your strategy might change as your business grows. We offers flexible shipping setup so you can find the strategy that works best for you and adjust if needed.
There are four basic strategies.
Flat Rate
If you can calculate your average shipping cost to send a package, you can set a flat rate (e.g., €5 per order upto a certain value) or a percentage (e.g., 10% of the order subtotal) for every package. Flat rate based on price of order is a good starting point for small businesses who have limited resourcesCall: 01 618 8000 Email: sales@fcrmedia.ie
Free Shipping
Free shipping attracts customers. When offered above a certain threshold (e.g., free shipping for all orders over €50), free shipping can encourage customers to buy more. One of the ways to offer free shipping at minimum expense is to include the shipping fee in your product’s price. Just calculate the average cost of shipping and add this to your product’s price.
TIP: Using a combined approach of ‘Flat Rate’ for low value orders and ‘Free Shipping’ for orders over a threshold value (say €50) is the most common approach in eCommerce unless you sell unusual and difficult (read expensive) products to ship, in that case. Shipping by weight is a great solution
Shipping by Weight
You may also set rates based on the weight of your product, if you add the weight to each product in your catalog the shopping cart will calculate the shipping rate based on weight rules you create adjusting the shipping fee accordingly.
Exact shipping rates
If you ship products using a delivery service, you can charge your customers the exact rates you pay to ship their order. This shipping rate is shown on checkout when a customer is placing their order.
We integrates with UPS, FedEx to provide rates. Once you have a strategy, make sure your rates are accurate. To show the most accurate rates, you must add the following for each product:•add product weights•add product sizes•add package sizes
Defining A Returns Policy
Establish a clear and transparent return policy which will be available for review on your website to every customer. Usually, your return policy is available from a link in the footer of the website.
Returns Shipping Policy
We recommend looking at services from
An Post such as - http://www.returnpal.ie/ and https://www.returnmyshopping.ie/ to help you define your returns shipping Policy. Call: 01 618 8000 Email: sales@fcrmedia.ie
Replace Orders
Usually Merchants with Replace a Returned Item if there was a warranty issue, a wrong size etc. The rules and regulations for returns from online purchases are no different to how you would handle a return for a customer in store. Refunding OrdersYou can give a customer a full or a partial refund for an order.To actually refund the payment, you will need to login to the merchant account of the payment processor you use in your store and issue a refund from there.To notify your customer about the refund:1.Go to your Control Panel → My Sales → Orders.2.Find the order that was refunded.3.Click the orange payment status and select Refunded for a full refund or Partially Refunded for a partial one. The customer will receive a notification about the changed order status in their inbox:If you mark an order as Refunded, Sitepro will automatically restock the purchased items. If you mark an order as Partially refunded, Sitepro will not change the stock of the purchased products. In both cases Sitepro will not process an actual payment reversal.