When a shopper withdraws, their request lands in your returns inbox inside the app, with the 14-day legal deadline already running. From the detail view you mark it as processing, mark the goods as received and process the refund in Shopify; every step is recorded. Here's how the whole flow works.
Where the requests land
In your Shopify admin, open returnEasier and go to the Returns tab. You'll see the inbox with the most recent requests first, paginated 25 at a time. The table has six columns: Date, Customer (name and email), Order, Type, Status and Actions (with the «View detail» link).
The filters and the statuses
Above the table there's a row of filters that combine; click Apply filters to narrow down and Clear to go back to the full view:
- Status: filter by any of a request's 8 statuses.
- Type: returnEasier distinguishes four types —withdrawal, return, exchange and warranty—. By law, withdrawals are the ones with a non-waivable deadline.
- Search: type an email, an order number or the request identifier and the list narrows.
- Date range: set From/To using your store's time zone.
The 8 statuses are, in the legal record of a withdrawal: Pending, Processing, Not processable, Received, Refunded, Closed (and, in the commercial flow, the equivalent statuses are called Approved / Rejected, plus Exchanged and Credit issued). Each status carries its own colour so you can spot it at a glance.
A request's detail view
Click View detail to open the request. It gathers everything you need to resolve and to prove you complied, in cards:
- Customer and order: the shopper's and the order's details.
- Selected products: the items they're returning, with the partial selection already applied if they only withdraw from some.
- Customer photos (Pro+ plans): if they attached images.
- Reason: the text the shopper left (it's optional; they don't have to justify themselves).
- Timeline: the chronology of events from the audit log.
- Integrity: the chained hash that seals the request.
The Legal Flow actions
From the Actions card you resolve the withdrawal (the Legal Flow, clean: it ends in a refund):
- Mark as processing. You accept the withdrawal for processing; the shopper gets an automatic email with the return shipping instructions. On Scale+, the «Mark as processing + label» button also generates the return label.
- Mark received. When the goods come back to you, you record it.
- Process refund. You click the button and returnEasier instructs Shopify to issue the refund to the original payment method. If they withdrew from everything, it's the full amount; if they withdrew from part, a modal shows you the partial amount and you confirm it with «Refund [amount]». If Shopify rejects the refund, you'll see the error Shopify returns and the request doesn't change status.
- We can't process this… Only in the legal cases that allow it (excluded product, past deadline, order not found…). You give the reason, which is sent verbatim to the shopper by email.
- Resend confirmation. If the shopper says the acknowledgement never arrived, you resend it with its PDF from the Withdrawal confirmation card, without creating a new request.
Important: in a withdrawal the store doesn't «approve» or «reject» —it's a discretionary consumer right—; that's why the language is about processing. A full refund to the original payment method is non-waivable: offering a voucher or an exchange is fine as a freely chosen alternative, never as the only way out. That offer lives in the Commercial Flow, separate from the legal button.
The 14-day deadline, counted for you
The clock to refund starts when you receive the withdrawal notice, not when the parcel arrives. The law lets you hold the refund until you receive the goods or proof they were sent, whichever happens first. returnEasier shows you the deadline on each request so it never slips past you.
Everything is recorded
Every action you take generates an event in the immutable audit log: it can't be edited or deleted, it carries a UTC timestamp and a hash chained to the previous one. If a consumer authority asks you for proof, you export the signable history and hand it over. That traceability is the difference between complying and being able to prove it.