Return Merchandise Authorization: Where Returns Start And Problems Get Prevented

When returns volume turns simple approvals into operational risk

Every ecommerce brand eventually hits a tipping point. At first, returns seem easy enough. A customer asks for a return, your team approves it, a label gets sent, and the process moves on. But as order volume grows, exceptions multiply. Return windows get ignored. Items arrive in unsellable condition. Customers ship back the wrong products. Refunds back up. Inventory data gets scrambled. That is the moment Return Merchandise Authorization, or RMA, becomes more than a courtesy. It becomes a control point that protects your margin, accuracy, and sanity.

RMA is the step where you decide what can come back, when it can come back, how it should come back, and what rules apply once it arrives. Without a real RMA structure, your warehouse becomes a dumping ground for bad or invalid returns. With structured RMA, returns become organized, predictable, and far less costly.

Why unstructured RMA creates chaos downstream

The biggest risk of weak RMA is not unhappy customers. It is the confusion it creates in operations. When RMAs are handled inconsistently, the warehouse never knows what to expect. One item is fully authorized. Another has no reference number. Another was sent without approval. Another arrives months late. All of this disrupts inspection, disposition, and restocking.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, sees what happens when unclear RMAs reach receiving. "Returns can be tricky," he said. "A good example is apparel, there are times where people order something online, try it on, wear it once, and then want to return it. When that comes back, if the client decides to refund, we have to do our due diligence." He added, "Returns involve a lot of subjectivity." RMA exists to reduce that subjectivity before the item ever arrives.

How RMA influences inventory accuracy

Poor RMA allows mismatched, late, or ineligible returns into the building. Each one becomes an investigation, slowing down refunds and disrupting inventory accuracy. Inventory becomes polluted by items that should never have been checked in or should have been flagged for special handling.

Connor pointed to the broader accuracy challenges merchants bring to G10. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL was not great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." Poor RMA control causes the same decline in accuracy, but at the inbound stage instead of outbound.

Why HAZMAT products must be blocked at the RMA stage

Some products cannot legally be returned using standard carriers or labels. If your RMA system does not stop those returns, you create compliance and safety risks without realizing it.

Kay Hillmann, Director of Vendor Operations at G10, explained this clearly. "A lot of people do not realize that because you have to be a certified shipper, you cannot send returns back," she said. "I cannot get a power station, for example, and then put a return label on it and ship it back, because there is no infrastructure." She added, "I would be liable giving you a return label to ship it back."

Return Merchandise Authorization must include product level logic that blocks unsafe, illegal, or non compliant returns before they ever begin.

Why Return Merchandise Authorization must be channel aware

Shopify returns follow one set of rules. Amazon returns follow another. Wholesale returns may require pre authorization, documentation, or special labeling before anything can ship back. If your RMA process does not understand each channel, you end up approving returns your warehouse cannot process correctly.

Jen Myers, Chief Marketing Officer at G10, sees this constantly as brands expand. "We have some customers that come in and build a successful business. They go B2B primarily, and then they know they have to be successful in the D2C space or e-commerce. And they know Amazon is the big gorilla in that space, but maybe they do not know how to navigate it." She added, "It is still e-commerce, right? And so it is still the same beast in a different skin."

Return Merchandise Authorization must account for those skins or your warehouse becomes the one paying the price.

How a strong WMS transforms RMA into a predictable workflow

RMA is only useful when it connects to a warehouse management system. Otherwise it becomes a list of instructions that operations teams cannot follow reliably. When RMA data flows into the WMS, every approved return generates a status, a workflow, and a location.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO at G10, described how that visibility should function. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it," he said. "At any point in time, I know that Bobby has this product on fork 10 right now."

When RMAs tie into that level of visibility, inbound returns stop being a guessing game and become a repeatable workflow.

Visibility: the customer facing benefit of solid RMA

The number one driver of customer anxiety in returns is uncertainty. They do not know whether the return was approved, received, inspected, or refunded. Good RMA management eliminates that ambiguity by showing customers where they are in the process.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, highlighted the merchant side of that expectation. Customers want "100 percent visibility" and want to "watch that progression throughout the stages of the fulfillment process." When RMA integrates into that visibility layer, support tickets drop and refunds accelerate.

Why human support still matters in RMA management

Automated RMA rules handle most cases, but not all of them. Exceptions will always exist: mislabeled items, wrong orders returned, units damaged beyond expectation, or channel specific requirements needing human judgment.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, contrasted G10's support model with what brands experience elsewhere. "It is an offshore team," he said, and merchants hear, "'We are looking into this.'" At G10, he explained, "Every single account at G10 has a direct point of contact. You can either email or call your direct point of contact. It is that simple."

That direct line ensures that RMA exceptions get handled quickly, not lost in a queue.

Why stability improves RMA outcomes over time

RMA processes depend on pattern recognition: which SKUs create the most returns, which customers tend to push the rules, which channels need special handling, which products require extra inspection. High turnover destroys that institutional knowledge.

Matt Bradbury, Director of Sales at G10, explained the value of G10's workforce stability. "We have a very low churn rate," he said. "As far as industry standard goes, we have to be well below the norm. We churn fewer customers, and we churn fewer employees."

Stable teams produce consistent RMA decisions, which lead to cleaner data and fewer exceptions.

Turning Return Merchandise Authorization into a strategic shield

Return Merchandise Authorization is more than a gateway. It is a shield that protects your operation from unnecessary cost, inventory errors, compliance failures, and customer frustration. A well structured RMA system gives clarity to customers, discipline to operations, and confidence to finance teams who rely on accurate data.

G10 Fulfillment builds RMA logic into its larger reverse logistics framework. With scan based workflows, HAZMAT expertise, omnichannel rules, and direct human support, G10 turns RMA from a pain point into a predictable and profitable process.

If your RMA process today feels manual, inconsistent, or full of exceptions, G10 can help you build a structure that catches problems before they enter the warehouse and keeps returns flowing smoothly.