The return is legally ours to handle.
Most cross-border providers move the parcel out and hand the return back to you. Because eBrands is the Merchant of Record, the customer's return right runs against us, not against your brand. We hold the local return address, we issue the refund, we take the unit back into the network and decide what happens to it next.
A typical logistics provider
eBrands as Merchant of Record
A sale is one transaction. A return is four.
Refund, transport, inspection and disposition — each with its own cost, and each in a market the brand does not operate in.
In the EU, distance selling gives consumers a withdrawal right of at least 14 days on most goods, and other markets have their own equivalents. It applies whether or not a brand has planned for it, and it applies to whoever is legally selling — which is the part most brands only check afterwards.
Ask a customer in Germany to ship back to a warehouse outside the EU and the parcel alone can exceed the item's value — before customs paperwork on the way back in. Without a domestic return address, the economics only work by refusing returns, which damages the listing and the brand.
A unit that comes back and is never graded is a unit that exists physically but not in the inventory position. It is not sellable, not written off, and not counted — which quietly distorts both the stock number and the margin.
Five steps from request to resolved.
The same sequence whether the order came from a marketplace, a D2C store or a retail channel — the entry point differs, the process does not.
The refund and the parcel are separate clocks. Consumer rules set when the money has to be back with the customer; the unit's physical journey takes as long as it takes. Running both as one process is how a refund gets issued on time without losing track of the goods.
Every returned unit gets a grade, and the grade decides where it goes.
The difference between a returns process and a returns pile is whether somebody looks at the unit and makes a decision about it.
Back to stock: Unopened or as-new. Returns to the sellable inventory position and to the count, available on every channel again.
Rework and restock: Sellable after light work — repacking, relabelling, replacing outer packaging. Handled by the same prep capacity that preps outbound stock.
Secondary channel: Functionally fine but not first-quality. Recovers value through outlet or clearance routes rather than sitting as dead stock.
Write off or recycle: Damaged, used, or restricted from resale by category rules. Disposed of compliantly and removed from the inventory position cleanly.
Some categories cannot be resold at all. Cosmetics, supplements and food are restricted once a seal is broken, regardless of condition. Where that applies, the grade ladder collapses to two outcomes and the returns cost has to be priced into the margin from the start rather than discovered later.
Returns arrive differently depending on where the sale happened.
Each channel sets its own rules on who the customer talks to, who pays the postage and where the unit ends up. All of them still reconcile back to one inventory position.
We carry the obligation. You keep the policy.
Handling the return does not mean deciding what your brand stands for. The commercial posture stays a brand decision.
The returns window beyond the statutory minimum, whether return shipping is free, how goodwill cases are treated, and the tone of the customer conversation.
The legal obligation as seller of record, the local return address, the refund itself, the reverse transport, grading, restocking and disposal.
The read on what returns are telling you — the rates, the reasons, and what changes upstream as a result.
One thing worth stating plainly: a generous returns policy is a conversion lever, and a strict one is a margin lever. Which trade you want is yours to set. Our job is to make either one executable in every market without you opening an entity in it.
Common questions about supply chain and import
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