Responding to an issue as a maker

When a shopper raises an issue you’ll get an email, and the issue appears on that order in your dashboard.

Your response window

You have 3 working days (Monday to Friday, excluding UK bank holidays) to respond. Miss it and the issue comes to us to decide, with whatever both sides have put on it by then.

Late posting is the one exception. If a shopper reports it because their order hasn’t gone out and you say nothing, we don’t weigh it up: if it still hasn’t been posted by the deadline, we refund them in full. Post it and add tracking and the issue closes. Or give a date you’ll post it by, and the shopper chooses between waiting for it and a full refund. If they wait, your deadline moves to that date. There’s one wait: after it, you post the order or cancel it for a full refund.

Pausing orders doesn’t pause that clock. Shoppers with orders already in flight can still raise issues, and the deadlines keep running while you’re away. If you’re going somewhere without signal, sort your open orders before you go.

How to respond

1. Go to Orders and open the order with the issue on it.
2. Read the shopper’s reason and any photos they’ve sent.
3. Choose how you want to resolve it.
4. Submit your response.

Your options

Anything other than a full refund goes to the shopper to answer. If they decline, the issue comes to us and we look at the evidence from both sides. If the shopper doesn’t reply by their deadline, a refund you offered is paid to them automatically. A replacement offer closes the issue instead.

Once the shopper accepts a replacement or a repair, the issue stays open until it’s back with them. Mark it as sent on the issue page when you post it. If it isn’t posted by your date, the issue comes to us. The shopper then has until the date on the issue page to tell us it’s faulty too, and if they do, it comes to us rather than back to you: under the Consumer Rights Act you get one repair or replacement, not two.

While it’s with us, you can still settle it yourself. Accepting the claim from the issue page refunds the shopper and closes the issue straight away.

If a shopper says they’ve changed their mind

A message saying they want to cancel has already cancelled the order, whether it’s a plain message in the order conversation or the cancellation form our returns policy offers, which comes to us and we pass on to you. It isn’t an opening offer, and the clocks start from it: the shopper posts the item back, and the refund falls due once it reaches you or they show you they’ve sent it.

Ask them to open the return from their order page. That’s not what makes the cancellation valid, it’s what gets it recorded, refunded through us, and off your list.

You can’t start a change-of-mind return yourself, so wait for their request. The shopper picks the items they’re sending back, and the refund is worked out from those. An item made to the shopper’s specification can’t be sent back for a change of mind, and we work that out from the order: setting your returns policy covers what counts.

Returns

Who pays for the postage back depends on the reason the shopper picked, and the issue page says which. Setting your returns policy has the full table. On a change-of-mind return the shopper pays and posts it themselves by a tracked service, within 14 days. Posting in time is what counts, not arrival. If nothing is posted, the return expires and no refund is due unless the item reaches you later. A shopper who posted it untracked can still send us proof of posting, and if it’s dated in time we reopen the return and the refund is due as normal.

Where the postage is yours, you have 5 days to upload a prepaid label on the issue page and add its tracking number. If the deadline passes with no label, the issue comes to us to decide rather than closing in your favour, and your payout stays on hold until it’s settled. We’ll email you before that happens. Sending a return label covers where to buy one and what we accept.

That holds when you’re asking for it back to check a claim you doubt: the reason the shopper picked decides who pays, not what you suspect. If you don’t believe the claim, you can decline it with your reasons and photos instead, and if the shopper disagrees it comes to us to decide.

Once the parcel arrives, check it’s the item you sent, in the condition you expected, then confirm it with Confirm return received and the refund is issued. If something’s wrong with what came back, use Report issue instead and pick what happened: wrong item, nothing in the parcel, damage in transit, or a hygiene seal that’s been broken.

If a return reaches you after it expired, open the issue and confirm it there in the same way. The shopper is refunded what they’d have had if it had arrived in time.

For a hygiene-sealed item the shopper confirmed was still sealed, you’ll need photos showing otherwise. Where the evidence isn’t clear, we resolve in the shopper’s favour, so photograph the parcel as you open it.

If a parcel is lost or damaged

The shopper’s contract is with you, so a parcel that goes missing or arrives broken is still yours to put right. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the goods are at your risk until they reach the shopper, or someone the shopper named to take them in, such as a neighbour. A carrier you chose is acting for you. A refund or replacement the shopper is due isn’t conditional on the carrier paying out.

The claim against the carrier is yours as well, because you bought the carriage and they contracted with you rather than the shopper. Please don’t send the shopper to chase it: most carriers won’t deal with the recipient, so it wastes their time and yours.

What we hold is there for that claim. The posting date, the carrier and the tracking number you added are on the order page; any photos the shopper sent are on the issue itself, under their description. We don’t contact carriers or fund claims on your behalf.

The response deadline keeps running while a claim is open, and a message on its own doesn’t count as a response. If you’re waiting on the carrier, propose what you’d do if the claim fails (a refund or a replacement), or decline and give your reasons. Either keeps the issue between you and the shopper. Silence sends it to us.