What the customer sees

Everything on this page requires Let customers raise returns themselves to be switched on. → Returns settings

Where the customer starts

In the customer’s account, on the order: Account → Orders → order → the order’s menu. Depending on where the order stands, it offers Return and, before despatch, cancelling.

The return form

The customer picks the articles, the quantity for each and a reason. Reasons are grouped into shipment, product and other, so the list stays readable, and only reasons marked as visible in the shop front appear.

What the form shows per article:

• the picture and the name, as they were on the order;
• how many may still be sent back;
• a comment field, marked as required when the chosen reason needs one;
• an upload field, when the reason allows or requires photographs.

Reasons refused by the return rules are not offered. An article whose window has passed, or which an exclusion blocks, says so instead of accepting a claim the shop would have to reject afterwards. An article allowed only after confirmation asks the customer to confirm the condition, for example an unbroken hygiene seal, before it can be claimed.

Complaints about a fault are not limited by the return window. The form states this explicitly: a defect can be reported within the guarantee period.

The form is checked as it is filled in, and sending it does not reload the page. A rejected submission keeps everything the customer already entered, photographs included.

Photographs

Pictures can be added one at a time rather than all at once: picking a second file adds to the selection instead of replacing it. Each one gets a thumbnail and can be removed before sending.

Type, size and count are checked in the browser first and again on the server, which is the one that decides. Pictures are stored privately: they are never published, and only the shop can see them. The customer does not see them again after sending.

The status page

After sending, the customer gets the return number and, from then on, the claim on their order page. Opening it shows what was claimed and where it stands:

• the return number, the type and the date;
• the status, in the same words the shop uses;
• per article: the picture, the quantity claimed, the quantity the shop received, the reason and the customer’s own comment;
• for a complaint, the date by which the shop will answer.

What it deliberately does not show: what the warehouse decided about the goods, which warehouse they went to, internal notes, or the amount before the shop has committed to one. Telling a customer their article was written off invites an argument about something that no longer exists.

Cancelling an order

Before despatch, the order menu offers cancelling, provided the shop has switched it on and the order, payment and delivery states all allow it.

The customer confirms in a dialog and, if the shop requires it, picks a reason. The reason is kept with the order, so cancellations can be counted and read afterwards rather than merely happening.

This replaces Shopware’s own cancel button entirely while it is switched on, so a customer never sees two of them, and never slips past the shop’s conditions through the built-in one.

Answering the shop

When the shop asks a question, the claim’s page shows the exchange and a reply form beneath it. The form only appears while a question is open.

If the question requires a photograph, the reply cannot be sent without one. If two questions are open and either required a photograph, the requirement stands; one reply answers both.