Out-of-stock items during the exchange process can create a poor experience for customers. ReturnGO provides a unique returns solution that protects both businesses and customers from the frustration of out-of-stock situations.
To avoid out-of-stock exchanges, ReturnGO offers several powerful features:
When used together, these features form a comprehensive strategy to prevent out-of-stock issues in the exchange process.
Minimum Stock Threshold
This feature is included in all ReturnGO plans.
Setting a minimum stock threshold enables you to decide the minimum inventory level required for an exchange. Product variants with a remaining stock below your defined threshold will not be available for exchange.
For example, if you set a threshold of 5, once a product has 5 units left, it will be considered out of stock for exchanges.
This ensures that you have inventory on hand to fulfill exchanges, preventing stockouts and improving the customer experience.
Learn more about minimum stock thresholds.
Reserve Items
This feature is available as an add-on.
Reserving items for exchange draft orders prevents out-of-stock issues during the exchange process by temporarily removing the items from your inventory and reserving them for a specific exchange.
By reserving items you guarantee those items will be in stock when the exchange is finalized. This can also incentivize customers to ship back the items before the reserved items get restocked, in order to avoid the reserved items being out of stock and the exchange being delayed.
Set reserved inventory expiration dates allow you to easily manage and restock your upcoming reserves as draft orders are completed.
Learn more about how to reserve items.
Instant Exchanges
This feature is available as an add-on.
With instant exchanges, customers can receive their new items immediately instead of waiting for the returned items to be sent back. As a result, stockouts are less likely since the new items are shipped as soon as an RMA has been approved.
Customers provide payment details upfront, so the new items can ship right away. Their card is authorized for the full price of the new items if the originals aren't returned.
Instant exchanges also protect your business against fraud, since the customer must authorize payment for the new items if the original items aren’t returned within a specified amount of time or in the required condition.
If the customer does ship the items back, the authorized amount is used to cover price differences and fees.
However, if you discover an issue with the item during item validation, you can still charge the customer the full amount, as long as the customer hasn't yet been charged for the price difference and fees.
Offer instant exchanges to prevent out-of-stock exchanges, improve the experience for customers, and protect yourself from fraud.
Learn more about instant exchanges.
Out-of-Stock Prevention Tips
While some edge cases can still cause stockouts during exchanges, using this combination of inventory management tools can help you create a smooth exchange process with fewer out-of-stock situations.
Supporting Out-of-Stock Exchanges
If you do want to allow out-of-stock exchanges for certain exchange resolutions, you can enable the setting under each exchange resolution's Stock section.
Learn more here.