Returnly & BigCommerce Integration

Switchboard's Returnly & BigCommerce connector provides merchants the ability to automate their reverse logistics process end-to-end.

Getting Started

• Provision a new BigCommerce API Account with the appropriate scope. For more information on how to create new Store API Accounts please refer to this BigCommerce help article. The configuration details are listed below:

Scope	Usage
Customers: read-only	Read customer details to accompany order data
Information & settings: read-only	Read store settings & retrieve shipping information
Marketing: modify	Read and write gift certificates
Orders: modify	Read orders and create exchange orders
Order Transactions: modify	Read prior transactions as well as generate refunds for shoppers
Create Payments: create	Refunding a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA)
Get Payment Methods: read-only	Determine if an instant credit voucher was used
Products: modify	Read catalog for product information and updates to inventory

• Provide the Switchboard team with your BigCommerce API Account Credentials via a secure Dropbox link. This link will be provided during the onboarding process.

• Provide the Switchboard team with your customer support email address.

• BigCommerce USD Gift Certificates must be enabled to use Returnly Credit.

  1. The minimum and maximum amounts aren’t enforced by the API so these can be ignored.

  2. Specific gift certificate amounts are also ignored by the API so this setting also doesn’t limit Returnly Credit issuance.

Currently Supported Returnly Features

1. Return Center

2. Refunding

   1. Refunding to Original Form of Payment

   2. Refunding to Gift Card

   3. Auto-Restocking of Inventory to BigCommerce

3. Returnly Credit

4. Instant Exchanges

5. Exchange on Scan

6. Green Returns

7. Gift Returns

8. Order Tracking

9. Product Recommendations

10. Returnly Analytics

11. In-Store Returns

    1. If In-Store orders are captured in BigCommerce, then In-Store Returns will work as expected. The merchant must be able to use a POS machine that can run the Returnly In-Store App.

12. International Returns

    1. HS Tariff codes must be configured in the BigCommerce Product Catalog via custom fields to ensure that Returnly can generate the proper cross-border customs forms.

Note: All Returns API functionality & integrations will work as expected. Including experience integrations and 3PL/WMS/ERP integrations.

Order Import

Switchboard utilizes two import mechanisms:

1. A historical import that retrieves past orders from a given storefront.

2. A webhook import that ingests orders in real time as they are created and updated in BigCommerce.

Orders are imported into Returnly based on where they are in their lifecycle. Orders with the following statuses will be imported:

• Partially Shipped

• Shipped

• Completed

• Partially Refunded

• Refunded

• Disputed

Orders with these statuses are not imported into Returnly to prevent shoppers from creating ineligible returns:

• Incomplete

• Pending

• Awaiting Payment

• Declined

• Cancelled

• Manual Verification Required

• Awaiting Fulfillment

• Awaiting Shipment

• Awaiting Pickup

As orders are updated in BigCommerce, Switchboard will import orders that, for example, progress from “Awaiting Fulfillment” to “Shipped”.

Returnly can only accept one shipping address per order. If multiple shipping addresses are applied to a single BigCommerce order only the first shipping address is passed to Returnly. In the event that this order is returned the shopper is given the opportunity to change their shipping address during the RMA creation process.

Tagging

Returnly exposes a collection of tags in its API that enables merchants to customize the behavior of their Return Center. Switchboard includes custom tagging as a component of the integration offering.

"Out of the Box" Tagging:

By default, Switchboard passes all custom fields configured within BigCommerce's product catalog to Returnly as order line item tags. The format for custom field tags is: "<fieldname>=<field_value>". For example, if a product has a custom field name of "final-sale" and a value of "TRUE", then the tag will be sent to Returnly as final-sale=TRUE.

Refunding

Switchboard currently issues order-level refunds to BigCommerce for any of the products selected for return within Returnly’s interface. This refund approach is taken since many refunds will result in the deduction of return shipping or other fees. Using a product-level refund approach would result in a split payment which prevents BigCommerce from allocating the refund. Refunding via Switchboard is compatible with most “online” payment methods in BigCommerce including purchases made through credit providers like Affirm, AfterPay, etc.

Refund Steps

1. Refunds will only be delegated to “online” payment methods.

2. In cases where multiple payment methods are used to purchase the order, the refund amount is first consumed by the original payment method(s).

   1. The original payment method is determined by finding providers where "offline" is false and the provider_id does not equal “storecredit”.

3. If the full refund amount can not be applied to the original payment method, then the remaining balance will be applied to store credit. Gift certificates purchased on the storefront by shoppers are also returned as store credit.

To make it easy to identify Returnly initiated refunds, Switchboard passes return reasons to BigCommerce. Each line item will have the return reason included in the refund request and the parent refund object will include the Returnly RMA using the following format: “returnly-rma-12345”.

Multiple refunds can be made against a single order so long as there is refund potential remaining. However, any single unit in Returnly can’t be returned or refunded twice.

Orders that are discounted 100% can not be refunded to BigCommerce; however, a shipping label will still be generated if the merchant’s Return Policy allows for it.

Manual Payments (i.e. “offline” payments) created in BigCommerce’s order dashboard are always refunded back to store credit.

Product Bundles & Buy One Get One (BOGO)

Merchants promote their products to shoppers in a variety of ways to boost sales. These promotions can have implications on refunding. Here are some scenarios to consider:

• In the case of a BOGO sale, what happens when a shopper wants to return the "free" item?

• When a shopper wants to return a product bundle, is it possible for a shopper to return part of the bundle?

These kind of scenarios need to be explicitly defined in the return policy and configured via the Switchboard integration. A common strategy taken by merchants is to prorate the total value of the bundle or BOGO across each item to ensure a "fair" refunding outcome for shoppers. These scenarios should be considered during the Returnly onboarding process.

Auto-Restocking of Inventory

Automatic restocking of inventory back into BigCommerce can be configured, if desired. If you would like this enabled, then please reach out to [e-mail]. Upon a successful refund, Switchboard will restock the items in the RMA that were not marked as "Missing" or "Damaged" within the Returnly user interface. If for some reason, a refund fails (i.e. Moves into a "Pending Refund" status), Switchboard will not restock the items in the RMA. This must be done separately by the merchant support team.

Switchboard will automatically detect if return line item inventory levels are tracked at the product or variant level in BigCommerce and the system will restock those items appropriately. If inventory levels are not tracked in BigCommerce, then the product is skipped.

For more information on the refund capabilities in BigCommerce please refer to the BigCommerce Refunding Help Article.

Exchanges

Both Instant Exchanges (powered by Returnly Credit) and "Exchange on Scan" exchanges are supported by the Switchboard connector. You can read more about Returnly's Exchange flow here.

Shoppers are able to exchange their original purchase for variant of the same product. For example, if they purchased a large, blue T-shirt, then they can choose a different variant of that T-shirt based on the product options configured in the BigCommerce product catalog (e.g. a medium, green T-shirt).

Products are only eligible for exchange if the inventory for that product/variant is available in BigCommerce. Returnly will not display exchange options to shoppers if that product option/variant is out of stock. Additionally, if inventory levels are unreliable in BigCommerce it's possible to set a minimum inventory threshold to ensure exchanges are not generated for products that are very low or potentially out of stock in the warehouse.

Instant Exchanges

Instant Exchanges are funded by Returnly Credit so these exchange orders are created immediately by Switchboard when the shopper creates their return and the exchange order is moved to the "Awaiting Fulfillment" status. Since Returnly is assuming the risk for the return the merchant is able to send this new order through fulfillment immediately without the need for the shopper to have sent the original item back.

Exchange on Scan

Exchange on Scan exchanges are not funded by Returnly Credit. When a shopper creates an exchange via this feature, Switchboard creates a new order in BigCommerce with a status of "Pending". After the original item has been scanned by the carrier, Switchboard will then promote this "Pending" order to "Awaiting Fulfillment" in BigCommerce. This process reduces fraud risk for the merchant in the absence of Returnly Credit.

Returnly Credit

Returnly will provision a gift certificate in BigCommerce whenever an eligible shopper receives a Returnly Credit.

When a gift certificate is provisioned in BigCommerce, Returnly will handle all communications related to communicating with the shopper. Returnly will surface the gift certificate code in the Return Center and it will send an email to the shopper notifying them as well. BigCommerce by default does not notify the shopper about the gift certificate so there are no duplicative communications.

All gift certificates created by Returnly are flagged in BigCommerce with the Returnly RMA in the following format: “rtly-rma-12345”.

Return of Returns

There are some cases in which a shopper may elect to return a repurchase made using a Returnly Credit voucher. This is called a “Return of Return” or “Return of Exchange”. When this happens the shopper will not be eligible for a second instant credit. This prevents shoppers from indefinitely “renting” from a merchant. Merchants have the option of making "Return of Return" and "Return of Exchange" items entirely non-returnable.

Once the merchant settles the repurchase RMA, Returnly will issue a BigCommerce gift certificate as a refund. If the total return value of the repurchase was greater than the original Returnly Credit amount, then Returnly will first refund the balance to a new gift certificate and any remaining value will be refunded to the shopper’s payment method.

Integration Overview