Overview: Return & Exchange process
Overview
Returns management, will be a regular task for merchants, we will be committed to creating a more concise and intuitive process to help merchants deal with returns and exchanges faster, and automated management will be a core competency that we will build!
What we'll learn
In this article, we will explore how merchant can manage the return/exchange flow much more easily through some topics:
- Statuses of the Return/Exchange process
- Synctrack Return/Exchange management flow
- Synctrack Return/Exchange UML
- Exchange management process flow
Statuses of the Return/Exchange process
Status | Description |
|---|---|
Pending Approval | Every new return/exchange request will be assigned this status |
Approved | This return/exchange request has been approved by the merchant |
Marked as Received | The merchant has received the returned item from the customer |
Marked as Restocked | The merchant has restocked the returned item in the warehouse |
Merchant shipped the exchange (mership) | The merchant has created an exchange order for exchange requests |
Refunded | The return/exchange request has been refunded successfully |
Marked as Resolved | The return/exchange request has been completed successfully |
Rejected | The return/exchange request has been rejected by the merchant |
Cancelled | The return/exchange request has been rejected by the customers |
Synctrack Return/Exchange management flow
Synctrack Return/Exchange UML
Exchange management process flow
Step 1: Buyer creates an exchange request on return page
Step 2: Merchant View exchange request’s details in Synctrack admin
- Go to management > Exchange tab, and you can see all the shoppers’ exchange requests.
- Click on this request to be redirected to the exchange management detail.
Step 3: Approve / Reject request
- You can “Approve” or “Reject” to accept or deny it.
- Ensure you verified the sender’s info and enabled all exchange notification templates to connect with your shoppers.
- Edit the resolution or return method (if needed). For prepaid label method, you need to generate a label while approving the exchange request. Learn how to create & print label
Step 4: Marked returned items as Received and Restocked
- After approving request, merchant will let some days processing returns from customers to the return address
- Merchants can click the “Mark as received” if they received the items from the shoppers.
- After marking as received, merchant can Mark as restocked if the items were shipped to their warehouse. There are 4 ways for merchant to inspect this items in their store:
Status of Marked as Restocked process | Description |
|---|---|
Restocked | The returned item was restocked back into inventory — i.e., added back to available stock at a location. |
Not Restocked | The returned item was not restocked into inventory. This means the item was returned but intentionally not added back to stock. |
Processing Required | The returned item requires further processing before determining if it should be restocked or disposed. For example, it might need inspection, repairs, quality checks, repackaging, etc., before any final restock decision. |
Missing | The item was expected to be returned but was not physically received, the quantity is missing, lost, or not found when processing the return. |
Step 5: Create an Exchange order
- After the merchant approves the request, they can create an exchange order. Then, they shipped the exchange item to the customers.
- Know more about Create Exchange order
- After creating the exchange order successfully, the status would automatically be transferred to “Merchant shipped the exchange“
Refund if purchased items amount > exchanged items amount
In case the purchased item’s amount is greater than the exchanged item’s amount, merchant need to refund to the shopper:
Step 6: Mark the request as resolved
- After shipping the exchange items to the customer, merchants can click “Resolve” to end this exchange request.
Step 7: Remove items & Delete the request (optional based on some cases)
- Merchant can remove any items in one return request with greater than 1 items. This button allow merchant to remove any items that does not meet specific requirement from return policy.
- Merchant can also delete any request, in case invalid or mistakenly created requests are completely removed, in order for me to recreate that request correctly.
Further relevant process
- When any status of return/exchange request has been updated, an email notification will be sent automatically and updated in timeline history. Learn how Synctrack notificaion works with return/exchange flow. Also, in timeline, merchant can add comment or image to note any comment on the requests easily.
Updated on: 26/01/2026
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