How to Email Prepaid Return Shipping Labels to Your Customers
Returns are an inevitability in almost any kind of retail business, but especially in online retail: the average e-commerce return rates are between 15% and 40%, compared to approximately 9% in brick-and-mortar stores. The way an online store handles returns affects customer retention, therefore it is crucial to make the return process as easy as possible for customers. For example, some merchants include prepaid return shipping labels in all packages or email them to customers upon request. How to send a return shipping label by email?
A return shipping label is a prepaid shipping label addressed to the store. With a prepaid return label, all that a customer needs to do to return a product is affix the label to the package and leave it at the nearest drop-off location, such as a post office or a mail collection box. Prepaid return labels allow online stores to process returns quickly without putting an unnecessary load on their customer support teams, as well as give online retailers more control over the return process, which helps reduce return costs and prevent address mistakes.
Some online merchants print prepaid shipping labels and include them in every outbound package, but this approach has a number of drawbacks, especially for small businesses. Another option is sending prepaid return shipping labels by email so that customers can print them at home. This makes the process a little less easy for customers because they have to request a return shipping label and then print it themselves, but this approach has a number of benefits for online stores. For example, this way they can learn the reason for returns and don’t have to submit void requests for the unused return labels to get a refund.
Major carriers such as the USPS, UPS and FedEx allow to generate return shipping labels using your personal account on their respective websites. However, there is another option: many online shops prefer to use third-party shipping label printing services because they allow to choose from several carriers and offer shipping discounts, which is important for e-commerce businesses that offer free returns and want to reduce their operating costs. For example, with PostageMaker you can save up to 25% on shipping.
So, how can you create a prepaid return shipping label with PostageMaker and then email it to your customer? First, you need to sign up for the service; it will take you just a couple of minutes to create a PostageMaker account and get started. Once you sign up and log in, you’ll need to add funds to your account. We don’t take charge a monthly fee for our services; the money in your account will be used to pay postage for the shipping labels you create.
The process of creating a prepaid return label isn’t much different from the process of creating a regular shipping label: you need to fill out an online form where you enter information about the sender and the recipient, choose the postal carrier and type of service, and indicate the weight and dimensions of the parcel. The only nuance in this case is that your address is the recipient’s address, and the customer’s address is the sender’s address. By the way, PostageMaker allows to save addresses in an address book, which makes creating return labels even easier.
Once your label is generated, you can save it as PDF and attach the file to an email addressed to the customer who has requested a return. We recommend that you include detailed instructions in your email to prevent confusion, package loss, and other issues, something along the lines of “print the label, attach it to the box, and drop-off the package at the nearest carrier’s location”. Most carriers allow to reuse old boxes so your customers won’t have to get new ones, but you should let them know that they need to remove the old shipping label before affixing the one you’ve emailed them.
So, as you see, creating and prepaid shipping labels and emailing to your customers is easy. It is a good way to handle returns that increases customer satisfaction and customer retention rates, allows you to get feedback from customers who end up returning their purchases, gives you more control over product returns, and helps save money on shipping while offering your customers a free return policy.