How to Manage Product Returns in OpenCart

Product returns are not among the nicest things store owners have to deal with. Sadly, you cannot rule them out completely. Every E-Commerce store must have a strong return policy to ensure that customers will receive a reliable service and will be compensated if something with their order is not right.

This blog post will explain how to make sense of the returns in OpenCart, so you are prepared when a customer wants to return an item.

The first thing you need to do is find the returns section in your OpenCart admin panel. The section is located in Sales > Returns and is very easy to find as you see in the image below.

As you see, the Returns section is currently empty and the only thing we see is a filter. Let’s create a test order to use as an example for a product return and see how the section works.

We quickly made a test order of an iMac. The post-order page confirms that and gives us a few options. Click on History to view the order and the available options.

This is all the order information that customers view when they click on History. As you see, there are two available options - Reorder (the blue shopping cart) and Return (the red arrow). Let’s click on Return.

This brings us to the Return form that customers have to fill out in order to submit a product return to your OpenCart store. The first few fields are standard customer and order information. The fields below concern the actual product return.

Reason for return - the available options for customers are Dead On Arrival; Faulty, please supply details; Order Error; Other, please supply details; and Received Wrong Item.

Below that, customers have to define if they have opened the product or not.

The final field is an open text field where customers can write down any comments and details about the item they want to return.

Back to Sales > Returns

When a customer submits the product return, it appears in your admin panel. As you see, the Returns section is no longer empty - you can see the return request we just made for the iMac.

When you have multiple product return requests, use the filter options above to find your way around easier.

For now, let’s click on the Action button and see what we can do about this return request.

Now you see the Edit Product Return section and all of the editing options you have. This field shows you all the necessary information about the return request. The first half of the section shows basic customer and order details such as Name and Order ID.

The second half of the section shows the product information and the customer’s reason for submitting the return request.

As you see, we have selected Dead On Arrival as the reason for returning the iMac. The item was Opened and our comment for the return is Dead On Arrival.

The most important field in this section is the last one - Return Action.

This is where you as a store admin make the final decision. There are three options - Credit Issued, Refunded, and Replacement Sent.

Based on the information you have from your customer, it is up to you to decide which of these options you should choose.

Conclusion

This sums up the product returns management in your OpenCart store. Our advice is to carefully examine each return request so you can make the right call every time. E-Commerce stores are trying to be meticulous in their return policy to make their customers feel welcome and comfortable while shopping. This also means that a lot of customers often take advantage of that, so you shouldn’t take this lightly. We hope this helps, good luck!