Prevent refunds and cancellations on Etsy by sending customers these free gift card images

As an ecommerce seller, a significant number of your cancellation and refund requests occur because orders are late to either ship or arrive.

Shipping issues are often out of your control, but you still want to prevent as many cancellations and refund requests as you can, as they take money out of your pocket.

To help save sales jeopardized by late shipping, I came up with a solution that’s worked well during the holiday season, and I think it can work well year-round.

Basically, you give any customers whose orders are running late a digital card with an image of the item(s) they ordered that says “Your gift is on its way.” Customers can print these cards and give them to the intended recipients of their gifts directly. Or they can send the cards as emails.

This way, customers aren’t left empty-handed, and you get to save those sales.

Since these cards have been a hit over the holidays, I asked my designers to create a fresh batch of general gift card images that you can give to your customers anytime.

Here’s a preview of what the cards look like:

Opt-in below to download the complete set of “Your gift is on the way” gift card images

 

If you don’t know if an order will arrive on time, select one of these gift card images. Next, take a screenshot of the item your customer ordered using a free tool like Screencast-o-matic. Then, use a tool like Canva to upload the screenshot to the “Your gift is on its way” image.

From there, save the image and download it to your device. Then, follow the steps outlined below to send the image to customers on either Etsy or Amazon.

Here’s a quick video walkthrough:

Here’s how the process works on Etsy

• Inside your Shop Manager, go to Orders & Shipping
• Search for orders that aren’t going to arrive on time
• Click the message icon on the right

• Type your message in the space provided, saying something like…

Hello [First name],

We’re writing to let you know that your order isn’t likely to arrive on time. We’re very sorry about this!

To help, we’ve attached a custom gift card image that includes an image of your order. You can print this image or email it to the intended recipient of your gift so he or she isn’t left empty-handed while your order is in transit.

We’re doing everything we can to get your order shipped and delivered as quickly and safely as possible. And in the meantime, we hope this gift card image helps. 

Thank you!

Take care,
[Your name]

• Attach the “Your gift is on the way” image
• Click Send

Here’s how the process works on Amazon

• Inside your Seller Central account, go to the Orders tab
• Select Manage Orders
• Find the order that you would like to contact the customer about
• Click the name of the customer in the Order Details section
• Choose Other as the reason for contacting the customer (this option allows you to include an attachment)

• Complete your message, saying something like…

Hello [First name],

We’re writing to let you know that your order isn’t likely to arrive in time. We’re very sorry about this!

To help, we’ve attached a custom gift card image that includes an image of your order. You can print this image or email it to the intended recipient of your gift so he or she isn’t left empty-handed while your order is in transit.

We’re doing everything we can to get your order shipped and delivered as quickly and safely as possible. And in the meantime, we hope this gift card image helps. 

Thank you!

Take care,
[Your name]

• Attach the gift card image
• Review your message and click Send

I hope these gift card images help reduce your number of cancellations and refund requests! Leave a comment and let me know what you think of these images. And if you find them useful, please share this post with your friends and followers.