Return Care

Overview

Return care is a paid service that allows customers to pay a small fee at the time of purchase to cover the cost of future returns and exchanges. The service enables customers to return or exchange items for free later, without incurring additional charges at the time of the return.

For merchants, Return care helps offset the costs associated with offering free returns, as the fee paid by the customer goes directly to them. This service can also help increase conversion rates, average order value (AOV), and overall profit by giving customers more confidence to complete a purchase.

What you’ll learn

In this article, we will show you:

• Prerequisites
• Set up Return care
• FAQs

Prerequisites

• You must install and subscribe to AfterShip Protection and AfterShip Returns installed for the same store.
• You must be on AfterShip Returns Premium or higher plan.

Set up Return care

Step 1: Enable Returns care in AfterShip Protection settings

1. Go to ** AfterShip Protection Settings ** in your AfterShip Tracking admin.
2. Enable Return care and Shipping insurance.
3. Set up how much you want to charge customers at the time of purchase for offering free returns in the future.

a. Free: If you do not want to charge customers anything for offering free returns.

b. Custom: If you want to charge a nominal amount for offering Return care. Select the option and in the designated field, input the value.

4. Save the settings.

Step 2: Install the AfterShip Protection widget on your Shopify store

To enable AfterShip Protection, you need to install the AfterShip Protection widget on your store. You can either connect with our support team to get the widget installed (It requires collaborator access from your Shopify store) or do it yourself.

1. If you already using AfterShip Protection for your shipments and have the widget installed on your Shopify store, your Return care (in the above section) will take effect in a few minutes.
2. If you are new to AfterShip Protection, then you are required to install the AfterShip Protection widget on your store.

• Here is the guide to help to install the widget in your cart page.

• Here is the guide to help to install the widget on your checkout page (Optional).

Step 3: Exclude AfterShip Protection from store discounts

When the merchant enables Return care in AfterShip, it creates the Return Care product in their Shopify store with the product type set to Return.

If Return care is a product in your store and your coupon doesn’t exclude it, the Return Care product will be discounted, meaning customers will pay less for the premium fee. To prevent this, the Return care product should be excluded from discounts to ensure customers are charged the full Return Care fee.

Step 4: Test the Return care process

Once you’ve configured the settings in AfterShip Protection and AfterShip Returns, it's important to test the overall functionality to ensure everything works smoothly together and provides a seamless experience for your customers.

Ideally, if all settings are correctly configured when a customer initiates a return request through the branded returns portal, they should see a banner with a Free return! Your return shipping is covered message on the Item selection and Summary page. This will indicate that return shipping is already covered, and the customer will not incur any charges for the return.

How to test the free return badge with return care

To verify that the Free Return messaging appears correctly after enabling Return Care, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Place an Order with Return Care Enabled

• Go to your online store and place an order that includes a product eligible for Return Care.

Step 2: Pay and Fulfill the Order

• Complete payment for the order.
• Fulfill the order from your store’s backend.

Step 3: Initiate a Return

• Navigate to your store’s Returns page and initiate a return request for the order.

Step 4: Review the Return Experience

Once the return is submitted, you should see the following indicators confirming Return Care is applied:

1. Free Return Banner on the Item Selection page of the return portal.

2. Free Return Badge on the Summary page, with:

• The original cost of return struck through.
• $0 of cost of return is replaced with the existing cost of return.

3. Free Return Badge on the RMA Detail page, showing:

• The return cost struck through.
• $0 cost of return is replaced with the existing cost of return

4. CSV Export Report, where:

• The cost of return appears as $0 for RMAs covered by Return Care

FAQs

1. What are the competitive advantages of Return care?

Return care offers several advantages over its competitors:

• Merchants have 100% control over the service
• All profits and return costs belong to the merchant.

2. Does the U.S. regional limitation for AfterShip Protection also apply to Return care?

No, Return care has no regional restrictions. Merchants globally can use Return care to manage their free return service. However, currently, only U.S. merchants can complete the Protection onboarding.

3. Can merchants still charge customers for return labels after enabling Return care?

If a customer has purchased Return care, the merchant should not charge any return fees, including return label or restocking fees. If they wish to charge customer return fees, they should not offer Return care service.

4. Can merchants choose between Shipping Protection and Return care, or are both required?

Merchants can choose to enable either Shipping Protection, Return care, or both. If both services are enabled, customers will not be able to purchase only one of the services.

5. Is the free return benefit limited to one return per customer?

The free return policy applies to each order, and customers can return items an unlimited number of times per order. This will eventually be customizable in the future updates to allow merchants to set a specific number of free returns per order.

6. How can new users access and enable Return care?

Once a merchant completes Protection onboarding, they can enable Return care if they are on a Premium or higher plan of AfterShip Returns.

7. Does combining Protection and Return care limit the feature to only users with both services?

Protection is not exclusive to Tracking. The admin interface for Protection is located within the Tracking platform to help generate more leads from Tracking. Merchants with a Free Tracking plan can still use Protection.

8. How does the combination of Protection and Return Care work for merchants who have only subscribed to one of the services?

To use Return care, merchants must install both Returns and Protection. If either product is missing, the merchant must install the required product.

9. What can I do if I don’t want to offer Return Care for all products or non-returnable items?

We are planning to support the Hide specific product from Return Care and Shipping Protection feature, allowing merchants to use Product tags to exclude items being Free Return.

10. If multiple RMAs are issued, will all returns be free, or only the first one?

The free return policy applies to each order, and customers can make unlimited returns per order. This is considered in the roadmap to allow merchants to set up the number of free returns.

11. Is there data available on return care?

Return care Analytics will be available soon.

12. How can we customize the "Free return" banner text for Return Care on branded returns page?

We don't allow text customization at the moment. If we receive a request, we will consider it.

13. Are there plans to integrate other vendors with Return Care in the future?

There is no plan at the current stage. If we receive the request, we will consider it.

Key takeaways

• Return Care is a paid service that allows customers to make free returns or exchanges after purchase by paying a small upfront fee.
• The collected fee goes directly to the merchant, helping offset return costs and boosting conversion rates, AOV, and profitability.
• The service is available to Shopify merchants on AfterShip Returns Premium or Enterprise plans with AfterShip Protection installed.
• Merchants can set the Return Care fee as free or custom depending on their business needs.
• Installing the AfterShip Protection widget on the Shopify store is required to activate Return Care.
• Return Care should be excluded from store discounts to ensure accurate fee collection.
• Merchants maintain full control over Return Care pricing, profits, and configuration, and no revenue share with AfterShip.
• The service currently supports unlimited returns per order, with future plans to allow merchants to set return limits.
• There are no regional restrictions on Return Care usage, even though Protection onboarding is currently limited to U.S. merchants.

Updated on: 04/06/2025