Return Process What does it mean
What happens inside the warehouse when a returns process is started?
Chain Intel
I talk about supply chains in a way that is easy for anyone to understand, without difficult words or technical acronyms.
What I will discuss in this edition
Oggi parlero di cosa succede all interno del magazzino quando un dei tuoi clienti fa il reso di un prodotto
The 3 steps inside the warehouse during the returns process
Our last edition
In this post, I talked about what happens inside a warehouse when products arrive and leave.
Here’s what actually happens
The customer requests to return the item, either because it is damaged or because it is not what they expected... The reason for the return does not change the procedure.
When the customer confirms that they want to make a return, the internal software used to manage the warehouse initiates the process for picking up the package, which can be directly from the customer’s home or at a pickup point.
Which would be nothing more than an address to be reached for the delivery of a product, but in this case a package is being picked up.
The detailed plan with the route that drivers must follow is generated by software that adds all the necessary data
(customer phone numbers to notify them of arrival, addresses to reach their homes, etc.)
The software will create the entire route to ensure that the driver reaches all destinations as efficiently and quickly as possible.
After collecting the package from the customer and storing it in the warehouse, the three internal warehouse phases begin.
The 3 stages of warehouse operations
Once unloaded from the truck, the condition of the products is checked.
If they are actually damaged or if only a refund is necessary. Here they are sorted according to product characteristics. Only if a warehouse has multiple products of different types (clothing, electronics) will there be a dedicated team for each product type. If, on the other hand, the warehouse only handles one type of product, phase 2 begins.
Once sorted according to characteristics, a decision is made whether to proceed with repair rather than ship a new product, or to initiate a refund.
For products that will remain in the warehouse, these may be products that have been repaired and are in working order but the customer has decided they no longer want them, or products that need to be returned to the customer.
The warehouse management software is updated again and the products are repositioned within the warehouse in a dedicated area, not together with the new ones. A special area is created, usually called “USED”
What happens if you don’t manage it well?
In the next edition, I will talk about what happens to companies that are unable to manage their return process well.