What do we do with unused returns?

We’re not completely sure yet, but we’re figuring it out because, fortunately, we’ve only had one return so far.

Returns are tricky for us because all our products are print on demand. We don’t keep inventory or manage shipping. If a product comes back and it’s not damaged, we can’t just add it to a shelf and wait for another customer to purchase it.

Technically, we could disable the auto-fulfillment link for that specific product variant, ship it from our location, and then reactivate the feature. However, that’s a lot to manage for a business designed to operate automatically.

Our return policy is based on our experiences with owning traditional, brick-and-mortar businesses, which have higher profit margins and actual inventory. In that setting, there is more flexibility to handle the rare return.

Through this, we’ve intentionally built a culture, and really, a habit of accepting returns for any reason. Even though we run a gift shop, we prefer to keep things minimal and avoid adding unnecessary items to homes, and eventually, landfills. If something doesn’t work for you, we’d rather you not keep it.

As we grow and continue developing Argiope’s culture, we decided to maintain our return policy for now, even if it meant having an unwanted bag sitting at our desk for months. Instead of tightening our approach to returns, we looked for a way to make the returned bag useful.

So, what happened to that bag? It became our very first giveaway! It was a smooth process, as one of our coworkers bought a matching shirt, so we happily passed the bag along, excited that it found a new home.