When you use nShift Ship to book and print shipments, those shipments can be imported automatically into nShift Returns - so your customers can register returns without you needing to set up a separate integration.
This article explains how the connection between Ship and Returns works, and what needs to be configured to enable it.
How it works
When a shipment in Ship reaches Submitted status, it is automatically exported and pushed to Returns, where it is registered as an order.
Once the shipment is available in Returns, your customer can log in to the Returns portal, find their order, and create a return for one or more items. Returns then books the return shipment back through Ship.
Before you start
The following must be in place before shipments can be imported:
- Returns must be activated for your Ship account - contact nShift Support to enable this.
- Article data must be included in your shipments - shipments without article-level data cannot be imported into Returns and will not be available for customers to return against.
- Market routing must be configured - either by mapping country codes to markets, or by enabling automatic market routing (see below).
Market routing
Ship supports two ways to route incoming shipments to the correct market in Returns:
Option 1: Country code mapping
The receiver's country code is used to determine which market in Returns the shipment belongs to. Make sure your markets in Returns have the correct country codes assigned.
Option 2: Automatic market routing
If you prefer, Returns can automatically assign shipments to the correct market based on the delivery country. To use this:
- In Returns Admin, go to General settings and enable Automatic market routing.
- For each market, assign the relevant country codes so Returns knows where to route each shipment.
Required shipment data
For a shipment to import successfully into Returns, the following article fields must be present when the shipment is created in Ship:
Article fields
| Ship field | Returns field | Required |
|---|---|---|
ArticleNo | Product ID / SKU | Yes |
DescrOfGoods | Product description | Yes |
Quantity | Quantity | Yes |
UnitValue | Unit price | Yes |
CustomsArticleCurrency | Currency | Yes |
CountryOfOrigin | Country of origin | No |
UnitWeight | Item weight | No |
ProductDescription | Detailed product name | No |
ProductCode | EAN / barcode | No |
ProductSize | Size / variant | No |
PurchaseURL | Product image URL | No |
If a shipment fails to import
In most cases, shipments are pushed to Returns automatically when they reach Submitted status. If a shipment does not appear in Returns, it may be due to missing article data or a market routing configuration that needs to be updated.
If you notice a shipment is missing from Returns, contact nShift Support with the order number and we'll look into it.