Check the condition of the item and update the listing to reflect the changes, then relist it on all of the marketplaces it was previously delisted from. The most important thing is to check for stale or duplicate listings. With a return, there is usually an old listing draft, a previously ended listing or a partially relisted item, and if you relist over the top of that, you will end up with two of the same item listed.
The steps from returned package to live listings
A return is not an undo button. An item has changed since the first time it was sold, whether it be the condition of the item, the photos or even the price. You want to keep the order of the steps you take to address the return, as it feeds into the next step.
- Make sure you close out the return on the marketplace it was sold on. The refund should process and the case be closed before you relist it for sale anywhere else. This is to make sure you are not selling something that can be disputed.
- Compare the item to your original listing to make sure it is described accurately. Inspect it thoroughly, as the buyer may have taken off tags or removed a seam and now that has to be reflected in the listing.
- Regrade it according to the condition it is in. If it was returned as new with tags and the tags were removed, it is now new without tags and is considered excellent used condition. Overstating condition can cause a buyer to return it.
- Photograph the new condition and upload the photo to your description. Discuss the new condition in the first few lines of your description.
- Verify your price. A change in condition, a season change, or the number of weeks an item spends in transit justifies a new price. You may also have lost margin with shipping and fees on the first sale.
- Locate the old listings on each marketplace. Some marketplaces, like eBay, allow you to relist from sold or ended listings and retain your item specifics. Other marketplaces, like Amazon, require you to create a new listing. Decide on a case-by-case basis.
- Relist on the original marketplace first. Update all your photos and descriptions to match the new condition and also to reflect the correct price.
- Verify your shop for the correct number of listings. Not all marketplaces are created equally, meaning some may allow more than one listing at a time.
If it's only listed on two marketplaces, doing this manually is totally fine. Relisting two listings usually takes about ten minutes, and a tool isn't going to speed things up by much on a single return. Things really start to hurt if you're doing several returns a week across 4 to 6 sites. That's when people really start to cut corners on step 8 of the process.
What to watch out for before you relist
Most of the problems after a return come from listing the item too quickly. These are the ones that cost time, or worse, a sale.
- Duplicate listings. Relisting too quickly may have caused the item to be only partially delisted, and one marketplace may still show it as live. Relisting on that marketplace causes a duplicate listing. If both sell, you'll have to cancel the one with the worse impact on your seller metrics.
- Old descriptions on the copy. When you relist an item, it fills in the description with the old condition grade, pictures, and description. It's really easy to overlook the condition field when editing the description, which is the first thing a buyer looks at when they decide to open a case.
- Relisting before a refund clears. If you list the item for sale before the return case is closed, you may end up selling an item you no longer own.
- Things that should not go back up. If the buyer returned a different item than the one you sold, a damaged item, or an item that is missing parts, stop and contact the marketplace support to get that resolved first. Relisting it removes important evidence.
- Your first-sale costs are gone. Labels and fees are not always returned to the seller. Know what your costs are before you relist.
- You're not tracking your inventory. If you track your inventory in a spreadsheet or listing tool, mark the item sold and available again. Forgetting to do this is how an item sits unsold for weeks.
- You don't know the marketplace rules. Every marketplace has its own policies for relisting and rules for returned-item fees.
One habit to help all the above is to keep the returned item in a separate bin until it's live everywhere. If it's still in the bin, then it means something is still unfinished; maybe the photos still need to be posted, it's listed on only one site, or a duplicate listing check needs to be done.
Relist returned items everywhere with PrimeLister
The actual time-consuming part of a return is not inspecting the item; it is putting it back up on the marketplace and making sure no stale listings are still live. PrimeLister speeds up this process by automatically filling in sections that are the same on different marketplaces, making the item available to more customers, and shorter turnaround time per return.
- Free Find Duplicates Tool: run a pass before and after you relist.
- Etsy Crosslisting, Facebook Marketplace Crosslisting, and Poshmark Crosslisting: list your items in multiple places with the ease of just doing it in one.
- Inventory Sync with Auto-Delist: when the relisted item sells again, it can be automatically delisted from the other marketplaces.
- Bulk Actions on Multiple Listings: do returned item actions for several items at a time.
- Poshmark Bot and Depop Bot: do relist tasks, share listings, and accept offers on the items all at the same time.
- Poshmark Fee Calculator: see how much the relist will actually net you.
The Poshmark Bot and Depop Bot have 7-day free trials and no credit card is needed to start.
Frequently asked questions about relisting returns
Should I relist on the original marketplace or start fresh?
If you can relist from a sold or ended listing on the marketplace, that saves time because the item specifics fill in automatically. Starting from scratch when the condition, photos and price all change is better. Editing all of those fields can take just as long as doing a new listing and leaves more opportunity to skip a field.
Do I have to disclose that an item was returned?
You don't have to say it was returned, but you do have to disclose the item's condition truthfully. If returning an item changes the condition, like wear or tags being removed, then disclose that in the listing description and pictures.
How do I know an item is not still live somewhere?
Look in your own shop for the item on each of the marketplaces. You can also do a duplicate check with your listing tool. Make sure you do that both before you relist and after. A delist that failed silently the first time is the most common cause of duplicates.