Charge customers for a return fee via the return portal – Sendcloud Help Center

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Topic: Learn how you can charge your customers a return fee for returns they make via the Return portal.

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Charge your customers a return fee

You can now automatically and effortlessly charge customers for the price of their return label when they create a return via the Return Portal.

How are payments captured?

Payments are captured via an external payment service provider (Mollie).
The return shipping label becomes available for download in the return portal only when the payment is accepted.
The captured return fee is transferred directly between you and Mollie. Sendcloud is not involved in the handling or capturing of payments.
Mollie charges a transaction fee upon successful payment capture. Sendcloud is not involved in this process. You can find out more about Mollie transaction fees on the Mollie Help Center.

How do I enable paid returns?

Before you begin, make sure you've enabled the Return portal and configured your settings.

Step 1: Connect your Mollie account with Sendcloud

In your Sendcloud account, go to Returns > Return portal
Select a brand from the dropdown menu to select which version of the return portal you want to edit:
Scroll down to the section named Payments for returns and click Connect via Mollie:
You will be redirected to the login page of Mollie, where you can either log in with your existing Mollie account or sign up to create a new one.
If you create a new Mollie account, you must first complete the Mollie onboarding process to begin accepting payments (Step 2). You can read more about how to get started with Mollie here.
Once you've logged in to your Mollie account, click on Connect to confirm the connection with Sendcloud.
If you already have an account with Mollie, you can skip to Step 3.

Step 2: Mollie onboarding

ℹ You can begin accepting payments once you've completed initial account setup with Mollie, as soon as you see the status “You can start receiving payments”. When this status becomes visible, make sure to enable the Paid returns feature immediately. For our Italian, Spanish and UK users, you'll be able to settle payments and withdraw them from Mollie as soon as your onboarding status shows as Complete.

For more information on how to create a Mollie account, go to How do I create an account.

If you already have a Mollie account, you can proceed straight to Step 3. If you've just signed up with Mollie, Sendcloud needs to fetch some information from Mollie before payments can be accepted. You need to have at least €5 processed through your account, in order to get your account reviewed. The current status of the onboarding process is reflected in your Return portal settings page.

When the onboarding status is Needs data, you still need to enter some information in your Mollie account. Click the Continue onboarding button to be redirected to Mollie.
When all the required information is fetched from Mollie, you'll see the status In review. It usually takes a few business days before Mollie completes their review. If it takes more than 10 days for you account setup, please contact Mollie customer support.
When the onboarding status is Completed, onboarding was successful and the connection to Mollie is established.

Step 3: Select a Mollie profile

If you have more than one profile in Mollie, you can select which Mollie website profile you want to associate with this particular version of your return portal from the dropdown menu. Sendcloud will fetch the payment methods and information associated with the Mollie profile you select.

Tip: If you have multiple return portals per brand, you can use a different Mollie profile for each one of your return portals. You can also use the same Mollie profile across multiple return portals.

Step 4: Enable some compatible payment methods in Mollie

Before you can begin accepting payment for returns, you need to enable payment methods in your Mollie profile which are compatible with Sendcloud. Payments via bank transfer, or via pay later-type methods such as Klarna, are not accepted. This is because Sendcloud will not generate the return label until payment has been captured.

ℹ️ You must enable at least one compatible payment method in your selected Mollie profile.

Sendcloud supports the following payment methods:

Bancontact
Belfius
Credit card
EPS
Giropay
iDEAL
KBC
MyBank
PayPal
Paysafecard
Przelewy24

For more information about activating payment methods in your Mollie account, see here.

Step 5: Enable paid returns

Click the switch to Enable payments. You can also disable () payments at any time.

Step 6: Enter a return fee

Your customers will now be prompted to pay a return fee when they create a return via the return portal, provided the below two conditions are both met:

The return portal has payment for returns activated in the settings (Mollie onboarding status shows and Enable payments is enabled ); and
The return fee for this return is >0 (return rules considered*)

You can enter a return fee by going to Settings > Return portal and entering a value above 0 in the Return fee field. If the amount in this field is 0, paid returns will not be active for this return portal.

Step 7: Repeat for each of your Return portals

You can enable or disable return fees for each of your return portals by repeating steps 1-6 above. You can use a different Mollie profile per each one of your return portals, or use the same profile for all.

How can I refund the return fee to my customer?

From the Returns tab, find the specific return in the list. Click the eye icon to go to the details page. From the return details page, click on the Actions dropdown menu and select Refund return fee.

You will be prompted to confirm the return fee refund again. Once confirmed, the return fee will be automatically refunded via Mollie. You can check the status of the refund in your Mollie dashboard. The time it takes for the refund to be issued to your customer depends on the payment method used to pay the initial return fee.

What is the new paid returns flow for my customers?

Once you've enabled paid returns, your end-customers will be able to create a return via the return portal as usual by entering their tracking number and postcode to retrieve outgoing parcel details. They can then select which item/s they want to return and select a return reason and refund or exchange method.

The return fee is displayed on the Summary page, and your customer must click Confirm and pay to create the return:
Once the customer clicks Confirm and pay, Sendcloud checks if it's possible to announce the label at the chosen carrier.
When the parcel is announced, the customer will be redirected to the Mollie payment page where they can select a payment method (based on the compatible methods enabled in Mollie) and complete payment.
When payment is successful, they will receive the return label to download, print and attach to the parcel:
If the announcement to the carrier for the return label fails, then the customer will see an error message and will not be able to proceed with payment. This is to prevent customers from being charged a return fee for labels which can't be successfully generated.

Manage who will be charged for return fees using return rules

Return rules are similar to shipping rules, in that they allow you to define a set of actions which will automatically be applied to incoming returns based on set conditions.

You can use return rules based on the action Return fee is to automatically prevent return fees from being required. This is due to the condition that requires a return fee to be more than 0 before payments can be enabled.

Examples:

I don't want to charge customers who live in a specific country for a return fee:

If From country is Netherlands, then Return fee is €0

I don't want to require a return fee for a specific item/orders containing a specific item:

If item name is/contains Shoes, then Return fee is €0

FAQ's:

Where can I find shipping rates for return methods?

You can use our Price list.

How can I see when a return fee is charged?

You can see when a return fee has been charged directly in your Sendcloud account.

From the Returns overview, click the 👁 icon to enter the return detail page.
Under the section Refund method, the return fee and payment status will be indicated:

What happens if a payment isn't captured?

Sendcloud will only generate a return label after payment is captured. If payment fails or is not completed, you'll be able to see this in the return detail view under payment status.

How do I deduct the return fee if I choose not to enable paid returns?

You can still decide to manually deduct the return fee from the total refund amount. The process of manually refunding return fees is described in this article.

How can I cancel a return when the return fee has already been paid?

You can cancel an incoming return from the return detail page by clicking Cancel return. This option is dependent on the cancellation policy of the specific carrier, as described here.

Once the return is successfully cancelled, the return fee will automatically be refunded to the end-customer via Mollie. The transaction fee cannot be refunded.

How can I generate an invoice for a return fee for my customer

It's not possible to generate an invoice via Sendcloud. Invoices can be generated and downloaded via your Mollie account.

Why isn't my return fee showing up in Shopify?

Sendcloud syncs the return fee to Shopify only when the return fee is in EUR or GBP and matches your Shopify store currency. The return fee currency is based on your Sendcloud invoice address.

For more details, see Returns feedback Shopify.