Shopify Returns Automation Platform
We developed a commercial Shopify application to automate the entire post-purchase returns process for e-commerce merchants.
Technologies used:
15 Dec 2025
Alcara li Fusi, Italy
The Vision & Challenge
For many e-commerce businesses, managing product returns is a significant operational cost. The process is often manual, requiring hours of customer service correspondence, internal tracking, and financial reconciliation. A Micro-SaaS provider identified this gap, seeing an opportunity to build a product that serves thousands of Shopify merchants facing this exact problem.
The core friction was twofold. Merchants were losing revenue to refunds when an exchange would have been preferable, and their support teams were buried in repetitive tasks related to return authorizations. They lacked a system that could intelligently guide customers toward exchanges while giving merchants the administrative tools to define and manage their own return policies without writing code.
Robust Devs was brought in to engineer the complete application. We designed and built the architecture for both a self-service customer portal and a comprehensive merchant dashboard. The result is a unified platform that reduces manual work for merchants and provides a clear, simple returns experience for their customers.
Project challenges
- The system required deep integration with multiple Shopify APIs-including Orders, Products, and Discounts-to create a cohesive user experience that felt native to the platform.
- Building a dynamic exchange workflow that could accurately calculate price differences, process new payments, and issue credits as discount codes presented a significant technical challenge.
- The platform needed to give merchants granular control over return eligibility and business logic without creating a user interface that was overly complex for non-technical users.
Solutions
- We developed a service-oriented backend using Laravel to orchestrate all API communications. This centralized logic handles authentication, data validation, and error handling, ensuring reliable data flow between the app and a merchant's store.
- A custom state machine was implemented to manage the entire exchange process. It interfaces directly with Shopify's checkout and discount APIs to automatically charge for higher-priced items or generate single-use coupon codes for lower-priced exchanges.
- The merchant administration panel was built with Shopify Polaris, the platform's native design system. This provided a familiar interface where merchants could configure return windows, product-level exclusions, and exchange incentives through a simple set of controls.
Technologies used
We are concerned about the security and performance of our customers. That's why we always keep updating and use best technologies in our products
Front-end
JavaScript
ReactJS
HTML5
CSS3
Back-end
PHP
Laravel
DevOps
Linux
Digital Ocean
Github CI
Docker
Database
MySQL
Exchange Revenue Capture
Instead of defaulting to a refund, the application intelligently guides customers toward an exchange. The system calculates any price difference, prompting the customer to pay the balance for a more expensive item or issuing a unique discount code for the difference on a less expensive one. This workflow helps merchants retain sales that would otherwise be lost.
Return Rules Engine
The merchant dashboard gives store owners direct control over their returns policy. They can define specific return windows, exclude certain products or collections from returns, and create rules to incentivize exchanges over refunds, such as offering a small bonus credit. This flexibility allows merchants to adapt the tool to their specific business needs.