Managing inventory for your exchanges

Clear communication about inventory levels is crucial to avoid disappointing your customers with out-of-stock items. With your Shopify inventory synced directly to PostCo, you can easily manage product availability during exchanges.

Here are some ways to manage your inventory effectively.

To make sure that you’re not overselling your products and still have stocks available for your customers’ exchange order, you can now enable Reserve Inventory to hold the stock on Shopify in case it gets sold out at a later date.

This feature can be located under Return Settings > Exchange.

1. Upon approving your customer’s return request for an exchange, a new “on hold” order will be created on Shopify. A note is included within the order to ensure that the team does not fulfill the order until it’s ready.

   What you’ll see in the PostCo dashboard

   

   What you’ll see in your Shopify order dashboard

   

2. When the return request is resolved, the exchange order created in your Shopify store will now be ready for fulfilment. The note is removed and the fulfilment status will be updated to “unfulfilled”.

   What you’ll see in the PostCo dashboard

   

   What you’ll see in your Shopify order dashboard

   

Once a Shopify order is updated as "unfulfilled", your team can fulfill it whenever it’s ready.

Instant exchange offers customers a faster way to receive their exchanges so that they secure their desired items before it runs out of stock. In this instance, the exchange request is automatically approved, creating a new exchange order on Shopify immediately so that they can be fulfilled to your customers right away.

With instant exchange, customers will be prompted to enter their credit card details to make sure that you’ll receive the returns back at your warehouse.

You may refer to this article for more information about the setup.

The minimum exchange quantity feature allows you to set a threshold that acts as a "safety stock" for your products.

If your Shopify inventory reaches or drops below the defined threshold, customers won’t be able to select the product variant for exchange (it will appear greyed out). This buffer prevents conflicts between customers shopping directly from your website and those placing an exchange through the returns portal.

For example, if the Shopify inventory level for a product reaches 2 or below, it will be displayed as out of stock on the returns portal.

Product inventory is down to 1 in Shopify

What you've set in PostCo dashboard

What your customers would see in the returns portal

Exchange request disclaimer allows you to display a customisable message to your customers on the exchange page. If the item a customer wants to exchange for is unavailable, you can encourage them to select store credit and repurchase from your store.

For example, if a customer purchased an Orange size M top but needs a size S, and the size S is out of stock, the disclaimer can guide them on the next steps. If they prefer not to select an alternative product, the message can direct them to choose store credit for future purchases.