Returns disposition: who decides what.

Returns decision logic

A warehouse operator opens a parcel. Inside is a jacket, tags off, with a faint mark on one sleeve. Is the customer owed a full refund? Can it go back on the shelf? Those feel like one question at the returns desk. They are two, they have different owners, and they run on different clocks.

Two questions, two owners

A good provider does not tell your customer they lost their refund. It tells you what it found.

What the merchant owes: the legal layer

This is a summary of EU rules, which reach you through national law. National detail can differ, so treat it as a map and not as your terms and conditions.

Withdrawal: the customer changed their mind

• Under Directive 2011/83/EU, a consumer has 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason. For goods, the period generally runs from the day the consumer takes physical possession (Article 9).
• The trader must reimburse payments, including standard delivery costs, without undue delay and at the latest 14 days from being informed of the withdrawal (Article 13(1) and (2)).
• Unless the trader offered to collect the goods, it may withhold the refund until it has the goods back or the consumer has supplied evidence of sending them, whichever comes first (Article 13(3)).
• The consumer has 14 days from notifying withdrawal to send the goods back, and bears the direct cost of returning them, unless the trader agreed to bear it or failed to tell them it was theirs to pay (Article 14(1)).
• The consumer is liable only for diminished value caused by handling beyond what was needed to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods (Article 14(2)).
• Exceptions include goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised, goods liable to deteriorate rapidly, and sealed goods unsuitable for return for health or hygiene reasons once unsealed after delivery (Article 16).
• Directive (EU) 2023/2673 requires Member States to apply a new rule from 19 June 2026 for distance contracts concluded through an online interface: the trader must offer a clearly labelled withdrawal function, available throughout the withdrawal period (Article 11a). National implementation can differ in timing, so check each country you sell to.

Lack of conformity: the product is faulty

• Under Directive (EU) 2019/771, the seller is liable for a lack of conformity that exists at delivery and becomes apparent within two years. Member States may set longer periods (Article 10).
• A lack of conformity appearing within one year of delivery is presumed to have existed at delivery, and Member States may extend that to two years (Article 11).
• The consumer can choose between repair and replacement, unless the choice is impossible or disproportionately expensive for the seller. Price reduction or termination is available in the situations listed in the directive (Article 13).
• Repair or replacement must be free of charge and carried out within a reasonable time (Article 14). Your Europe confirms that for defective goods the trader is responsible for return costs.
• Directive (EU) 2024/1799, applied by Member States from 31 July 2026, adds a duty to inform the consumer about the choice between repair and replacement, and extends the liability period once by 12 months where repair is the remedy.

Notice the operational consequence. A withdrawn item comes back to you as stock. An item returned under a complaint may be one you have to repair or replace and send back. If both land on the same bench under the same procedure, a customer's goods can end up restocked or scrapped.

The decision logic, in order

The order matters, because each step can end the process cheaply. Grading a parcel that cannot be identified is wasted labour.

1. Can it be identified? Match to order or return authorisation. Nothing to match against: it becomes an exception, held outside saleable stock, and you are told.
2. Which channel is it? Withdrawal, complaint, undelivered parcel sent back by the carrier, B2B credit. Complaints follow their own route and are not restocked by default.
3. Is it what we sent? SKU, and serial or lot number where tracked. A substituted item is a hold and a merchant decision, not a grading matter.
4. Is resale allowed? Expired or short-dated lot, blocked lot, broken hygiene seal, product withdrawn from sale. A no here rules out restock whatever the item looks like.
5. What condition is it in? Grade against your written criteria for that product family, with photographs where your procedure requires them.
6. Can it be made saleable without changing the product? New outer packaging or a new label: repack. Anything that alters the product itself is repair.
7. If not saleable, what is it worth? The merchant's value rule decides between repair elsewhere, liquidation, return to the merchant or disposal, subject to the legal check described below.

The routes, side by side

Liquidation and disposal: check before you scrap

A clear-out at the end of a season is no longer just a commercial choice. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the ecodesign regulation, defines unsold consumer products to include those returned by a consumer on the basis of the right of withdrawal. Since 19 July 2026, Article 25 prohibits destroying the products listed in Annex VII, currently apparel, clothing accessories and footwear. Micro and small enterprises are excluded. Medium-sized enterprises come in from 19 July 2030, and businesses outside the ban must not destroy products supplied to them in order to circumvent it.

Article 25 also allows for derogations by delegated act, for reasons such as safety or damage that cannot be repaired cost-effectively. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296, applicable since 19 July 2026, lists the circumstances and the documents needed. Article 24 separately requires disclosure from operators who discard unsold consumer products directly or through someone else, subject to the same size carve-outs. Ask your adviser whether a derogation applies before you instruct anyone to dispose of these goods, and keep a record of the reason.

Writing rules a warehouse can actually follow

Good criteria describe things a person can see. "Good condition" is an opinion. "Tags attached, no marks visible at arm's length, original box present" can be checked by two people with the same result.

This table is an illustrative example of format, not a recommendation for your products. Whatever you write, it should also cover the following:

• A value rule per product family: below what recoverable value is detailed inspection not worth doing?
• What is photographed, from which angles, and how long the photographs are kept.
• Who answers an exception, and what happens if nobody answers.
• A review rhythm for quarantine, so that blocked stock gets a decision.
• How missing accessories, wrong items and empty boxes are reported to you.
• Which items may hold personal data, such as phones and laptops, and where they go.

Failure modes worth asking about

• Restocked too early. Stock is released on scan, then fails the check. Ask when availability actually changes.
• Refund before the facts, or facts after the deadline. Agree when you receive the receipt signal and when the condition report follows. They need not arrive together.
• Empty box returns. Ask how weight checks, opening and photographs are recorded, so you can act on evidence.
• Serial swaps. If you track serial numbers on the way out, they must be checked on the way back in.
• Unmatched parcels. No order number, no name. Ask how long they are held and how you find out.
• Grading drift. Two operators, two standards. Ask how the criteria are trained and how disputes come back to you.

Where ShipRevo stands

See the details on returns and RMA and quality control. Testing a return before go-live is part of a proper onboarding.

Updated: 2026-11-01