OmniReturns by SEKO

The OmniReturns portal gives retailers the ability to offer their customers three types of refund actions:

• Refund
• Credit Note (provided in the form of a gift card)
• Exchanges

SEKO OmniReturns is proudly integrated with:

One portal fits all!

The SEKO OmniReturns portal is a one stop shop for all locations. Both international and domestic returns can be requested by your customers using the one platform, allowing consistency in branding and avoiding time training your staff to use multiple systems. New trade lanes can be switched on at any time by simply contacting SEKO.

All functionality of the SEKO OmniReturns portal is available on mobile phone as well as all other devices.

The SEKO OmniReturns portal allows branding in various areas of the customer journey allowing consistency in line with your main website. Retailers have the ability to add the main background image to the portal, add logos and adjust button and text colours.

Your imagery will pull from your Shopify store into the SEKO OmniReturns portal. The images of all items making up your customer’s order will be displayed once the customer successfully enters their matching email address and order number.

Returning an item has never been easier. Simply tick the box and choose your corresponding ‘Return Reason’ and follow the prompts, allowing the complete process to be completed in 90 seconds. All selections made by the customer during the process are passed from end to end to allow full visibility and reporting.

SEKO understands the intricate differences that are essential in product feedback from customers. The SEKO OmniReturns portal allows retailers to customize your ‘Return Reason’ to be suited to your particular product: Isn’t the right fit, incorrect item sent, scratched, not as pictured…the list is endless.

These reasons can then be used to trigger a particular Return Action.  Eg Isn’t the right fit > Issue a store credit to the customer.

Understanding the requirement of various retailers to have information about returns to allow them to work with their suppliers to minimize future supply issues (which in turn decrease returns), the SEKO OmniReturns portal has an option to activate a ‘Sub Reason’ field. Retailers may then use this in reporting to pinpoint the supply chain issue.

We understand the frustration caused when your situation doesn’t quite fit into the set parameters. For this reason, SEKO’s OmniReturns offers the retailer the option to add a comments text box. If allowing a few words to be added to the returns journey reduces demand on your customer service team, we’ll do it!

Different retailers employ different business models resulting in returns policies requiring both free and paid returns. SEKO’s OmniReturns portal can be set to offer your customers either paid or free returns. And if a combination is preferential, OmniReturns can do this also; Free labels for customers who return faulty items, or maybe set to ‘Paid’ but issue vouchers to a particular customer. OmniReturns has the ability to do it all.

When a retailer chooses to charge their customers the postage charge for returning their items, SEKO’s OmniReturns still allows the option to offer FREE returns vouchers. The ‘Voucher Code’ is created by the retailer by logging into the Administration section of the OmniReturns portal. An individual ‘Voucher Code’ can be created or they can be created in bulk. The portal also allows the retailer to upload their own Voucher Codes allowing customized formats to be used.

So what price will your customers pay for the postage of their returned item? The answer to this question is entirely up to you, the retailer. Have you already factored the cost of returns into the retail price of your products? If so, you may wish to subsidise the cost of the price of the postage label and offer a discounted rate on the payment page. Or maybe you’d like to make some extra money out of your returns solution. If so, you can charge as much as you like. The label price is determined by the retailer for each country that has been activated.

SEKO’s Omnireturns portal can be configured to offer return actions in two ways:

1. The customer can choose their returns action, ie. refund, store credit (gift card) or exchange. This option will be presented to the customer as a drop down list just after they select the item that they wish to return and the return reason.
2. Automated Rules: In the Admin section of the OmniReturns portal, rules can be created based on various selections that the customer may choose when submitting their return.

Retailers have the ability to set their OmniReturns portal to use ‘Automated Rules’ (as above), using the Shopify rule feature offered by SEKO’s OmniRPS.  The rules can be based on: Return reason, discount percentage, discount amount, order value, country and tags.

As an example, a retailer may choose to issue credits for all items with the exception of faulty items and items that were incorrectly sent.

To avoid conflicting rules, each rule can be named and assigned a ‘Priority’ number. The system will then know which rule is to be used first, in order to give the intended result.

The rules also allow the retailer to limit the length of time a credit note can be used by assigning an expiry period.  Example Rule below:

‘No Action’ if ‘Tag’ = ‘Sale Item’’

This rule could be named ‘Sale items’ and be assigned a priority 1. The system would abide by this rule as a priority to all other rules meaning that items tagged as “Sale Item’ cannot be given a refund, credit note or exchange automatically.

With an API integration from SEKO’s OmniReturns portal back into the retailer’s management system such as AP21, data relating to the customer’s return selections can be passed back to the retailer allowing various work flows to be initiated. E.g. A particular ‘Sub Reason’ may be used to initiate a workflow to result in a particular returns action (refund, credit note, exchange).

What time limit are you going to set for your customers to submit their return? 7 days? 30 days? No limit? Regardless of the choice you make SEKO’s OmniReturns portal can be configured to be in line with the retailer’s return policy. During SEKO’s onboarding process retailers are given the option to choose the expiry period. Items beyond this expiry period will be shaded out in the OmniReturns portal. If a customer attempts to select this item, they will be presented with a notification.

SEKO’s OmniReturns portal doesn’t only cater for online sales. SEKO have covered all bases and developed to allow your customer, who has purchased in-store, to submit a return using the OmniReturns portal. The Proof of purchase feature gives portal access to these customers and allows the returns journey to continue after ‘Proof of Purchase’ has been provided.

We recognize that some retailers have products or situations that require a personal touch. With SEKO’s OmniReturns portals ‘Pending Review’ feature, customer returns submitted can be put into a pending status. Once the returns has been submitted, the customer will be notified that their return is now pending approval. The retailer may now wish to obtain further information. Once the retailer’s customer service team is satisfied and has granted the approval, the customer will be notified and the return journey may continue.

Further to the above ‘Pending Review’ feature, and to allow further automation, the OmniReturns portal have developed the ‘Image Upload’ feature, ideal for requesting proof of purchase of off-line sales as well as politely requesting evidence of a faulty item or an incorrect item sent.

Once the photo has been uploaded by the customer, the return will be placed into the ‘Pending Review’ status as above. SEKO’s OmniReturns enables a chosen email address to be configured with the system which allows a notification, containing all the required details of the return, and the images, to be emailed to the recipient. The recipient (usually the retailer CS team) can then mange the return with the click of a bottom.

With the above ‘Pending Review’ feature, by simply clicking on the ‘Manage’ button in the notification email, the retailer has the option to ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’ the return.

But wait there’s more! 😊 If the retailer chooses to ‘Accept’ the return, they may then offer a FREE label or a paid label, or no label at all. Wait, there’s still more! The response is automated: If accepted, an automated email will be sent to the customer. The label will also be attached if a FREE return was granted.

Security is always front of mind at SEKO. The OmniReturns portal allows permissions to be assigned based on user type, with the ‘Retailer Manager’ having full access.

From time to time your customers will encounter IT issues, possibly lose emails, etc etc. and request a new label be resent. SEKO’s OmniReturns portal has made this a quick and simple task.

With a simple search in the Admin section of OmniReturns portal, the return can be found and the label can be resent to the email of choice.

It’s never been easier to create a manual return on behalf of a customer. With the Shopify integration, the retailer can simply enter the order number and email address of the customer into the OmniReturns Admin section and, just like the customer facing front end of the portal, all the fields will prepopulate with all the relevant customer information. Simply ‘submit’ and the label will be created and emailed to the email address listed.

Seko’s OmniReturns portal not only allows for the creation of a return label by the customer, it also facilitates tracking from the start…all the way back to the retailer’s warehouse, with every milestone passed through during the journey. In conjunction with SEKO’s OmniRPS, the tracking notification can be branded with your logo and supporting images.

At SEKO we recognize the importance of keeping and monetizing traffic. The SEKO OmniReturns portal has various configurable links back into your chosen page on your site starting from the front page of the portal, ending on the last.

You now have the tools to allow your customers a simple, easy, fast and automated return experience. Now the return must be actioned and the refund, credit note or exchange must be provided to the customer. SEKO has this covered also.

SEKO’s OmniReturns working along side SEKO’s OmniRPS can pass the return action at 3 stages of the journey:

1. When the return parcel is scanned by the first carrier.
2. When the item arrives at the SEKO international returns hub and is scanned into the OmniRPS system.
3. When the retailer logs into the OmniRPS system and closes off the return manually. Any international returns can be actioned at any time by logging into the OmniRPS system.

Security is always front of mind for SEKO so choosing a compliant payment processing gateway is of utmost importance. For this reason SEKO have partnered with Stripe, a PCI compliant payment processing platform.