Selling on Shopify to the Canadian market brings good revenue, but complaints about the wrong colour or size are inevitable. When a customer in Vancouver or Toronto asks for an exchange, making them send the item back to Vietnam isn’t feasible because international shipping is too expensive. To protect your store’s reputation and avoid writing off the product, you need a closed-loop Shopify returns process in Canada that uses a local warehouse to recover and inspect items.
Step 1: Verify the customer’s complaint on Shopify
When you receive an email or message complaining about the wrong colour or size, stay calm and reply quickly, within 24 hours. Ask the customer for a few clear photos of the product and the label on its packaging.
Often the customer misread the size chart, or the lighting in the photos caused a misunderstanding. Real photos help you work out whether the error happened at the warehouse during packing or the customer chose the wrong option when ordering. Once you confirm the error was on the operations side, move on to creating a return label.
Step 2: Create a last-mile return label to the Mississauga warehouse
Instead of asking the customer to take the item to the post office and pay for it themselves (which easily leads to a one-star review), proactively provide a prepaid Canadian domestic return label. The customer just sticks it on the box and drops it off at their local post office.
The return address is Soleil Transportation’s warehouse in Ontario:
- Address: 2446 Cawthra Road, B1U8, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5A 3K6.
With domestic shipping within Canada and to the US from $35 per parcel, you can easily request a last-mile label from the system to send to the customer. The customer prints it, sticks it over the old label and sends it. The goods go straight to the Mississauga warehouse for processing.
Step 3: Visual inspection and comparison photos at the warehouse
When the return arrives at the Mississauga warehouse, Soleil Transportation staff receive it and process it according to your instructions. This step is very important for Shopify shop owners to find out exactly where the error came from:
- Open and check the condition: Staff check whether the product still has its tags or has been used, and whether it is damaged.
- Take comparison photos: The warehouse photographs the product label, the actual colour and, if needed, measurements taken with a ruler. These photos are sent to you by email or through the online tracking system.
- Assess whether it can be resold: If the product is brand new and as described, but the customer changed their mind or there was a minor packing error, it is put back into stock for the next order.
Step 4: Pack and send the correct product to the customer
Once you know the cause and the return is safe in the warehouse, you can confidently handle the next step for the customer:
- If you send a replacement: The warehouse picks the right colour and size from your stock held in our fulfillment service in Canada (storage and packing from just $5 CAD per order) and ships it immediately. Domestic transit is fast, which helps keep the customer happy.
- If you issue a refund: Refund the customer on Shopify once the Mississauga warehouse confirms it has received the item intact. The returned item stays in stock to sell to another customer, so you protect your cost of goods.
Tips to reduce Shopify returns in Canada
To minimise the number of Shopify returns you have to handle in Canada, optimise your sales process from the start:
- Detailed product descriptions: Provide a clear size chart in both inches (common in Canada) and centimetres. Product photos should show colours accurately under different lighting.
- Use professional packing services: When shipping goods from Vietnam to Canada by air (7–14 days, from $16/kg), make sure every item has the correct SKU label before it goes into storage.
- Regular stock checks: Reconcile actual stock with your Shopify numbers to avoid the wrong size or colour being picked during packing.
To set up an automated returns process and keep storage costs down in Mississauga, prepare a list of the products you want to consign and contact Soleil Transportation on +1 888-998-5199 or at info@soleiltransportation.com for fast help creating return labels.
