So you want to become a paragon of e-commerce? You may not aspire to someday topple the likes of Amazon and eBay from their lofty perches, but you can certainly stand to take a lesson from their approaches to customer service. Creating a steadfast return policy is a critical aspect of doing business in the digital ecosystem.

Why Do You Need a Return Policy?

Digital merchants implement return policies for many reasons. Although you'll undoubtedly have your own unique motivations, some potential benefits to consider include:

Customers Will Like You More

According to Supply & Demand Chain Executive, 33 percent of international transactions initiated online get abandoned because of return fees and over-complicated processes. It stands to reason that this percentage might decrease with better return policies.

Consumers trust brands that do a great job with returns. Remember that no matter how unique your product is, you're facing a planet full of competitors. In a glutted digital marketplace, customer service is a key value proposition that you can't afford to overlook, and a good return policy definitely helps.

You'll Reduce Your Operating Overhead

Creating a robust return policy could save you money. It's common to limit returns based on factors like the elapsed time since the purchase or the usage condition of the product in question. By refusing damaged goods that you can't resell and preventing people from claiming returns years after the fact, you make your profits more stable, protect yourself against legal action and reduce inventory shrink.

You Can Establish a Scalable Corporate Culture

Your return policy can set the tone for your organizational future. Familiarizing employees with how you treat consumers lets you create a corporate culture rooted in enduring values.

Customer service is one of the main things that people remember about your company. Implementing a uniform policy early on might also help you establish branding consistency as your operations grow.

What Makes a Good Return Policy?

Now that you understand a few of the reasons why you need a return policy, what should yours include? Fortunately, you can look to some of the giants of e-commerce for inspiration. Top brands, like Zooomr, succeed by focusing on factors like

Convenience that makes it easy for customers to initiate, ship and track returns,

Clear terms that protect companies from spurious claims and help shoppers understand what they're getting before they buy,

Time limits that let firms accept returns in a cost-effective fashion without losing too much revenue,

Eligibility standards that stop people from returning items for invalid reasons, and

Enforceable legal consistency that precludes disputes and makes it clear how employees should manage individual cases.

Other lessons come from companies like Amazon, which automatically authorizes some returns that meet its policy terms to streamline the process and engender lasting shopper satisfaction. The firm also facilitates exchanges, repairs and partial refunds to accommodate a wider range of consumer needs and purchasing habits.

Your fledgling digital startup may lack the infrastructure to institute comprehensive return services on such a grandiose, boutique scale. Nonetheless, such practices should inform your business philosophies going forward.

Getting Started the Intelligent Way

How can you create, implement and deploy a robust return policy that serves the needs of your enterprise as well as your consumers? In addition to focusing on outlining what people can expect while addressing the preceding concerns, you can use other companies as a cheat sheet.

If you sell using platforms like Shopify, for instance, you can learn from the data that they've gathered to find out where some policies fail and others succeed. There are also plenty of step-by-step guides, templates and independent blogs floating around the web. Regardless whether you come up with something completely new or take someone else's work and adjust it to fit, creating a return policy definitely ought to be on your entrepreneurial to-do list.