Onboarding merchants to buyer self-serve returns

About this project

The feature I was working on allows buyers to request returns directly from the checkout interface without having to contact the merchant directly.

This case study showcase the exploration I've done to plan and prepare how we wanted to onboard our merchants to this new way of returning items on the platform.

The challenge

The Shopify experience is very rich and it can sometimes be complex for a merchant to know what's new and what's not and to let them be aware that a new functionality is available requires a lot of preparation and thinking.

It's an effort owned by the team responsible for the project and also other teams like Marketing and Support team.

The solution

First I started listing all the possible entry points where merchants could be made aware of the new available feature. After mapping all possibilities and defining which team would own what effort, I focused on solutions to promote the new return functionality to help merchants onboard more easily and help them activate it.

For example, for new merchants that have the functionality activated by default when they start their store, they might not be aware that buyers on their store can request returns. So in their orders detail, when receiving their first request, they will have a contextualized banner giving some context on why they see this request.

Settings page can be very dense so how do we make sure merchants know that a new settings functionality has been added and help them find it.

Using a promotional header can be useful in this case, it catches the eye and directs the user to the proper component if they want to act on it.

After activating the setting, merchant has access to a few options to help them parameter their returns options.