Buying goods online: How to obtain a refund or an exchange?

Nowadays, many people will search for and buy clothes, shoes and other goods online. While being able to buy what you need from the comfort of your own home while being able to choose from hundreds of articles on dozens of websites is a clear advantage, there’s one major drawback: you can’t try on any of the clothes you want to buy or take a direct look at any of the other articles you’re ordering. There is a good chance that you have already ended up in a situation where the items you have bought were too big, too small or otherwise unsuitable for you. At that point, you were probably wondering how to go about getting a refund or a replacement for the unsuitable items. W2C has prepared this small article to guide you through the procedure.

Check the company’s refund and exchange policy

The first step is to read the refund and exchange policy of the company that sent the goods to you. This policy will include any conditions, deadlines, steps, and fees, when necessary. If you need to send the goods back to the country they were shipped from, the company may already have a deal with a shipping company for this exact situation.

1- To get a refund, you will have:

• Keep the original invoice, the customs declaration and the shipment document, and provide them to the shipping company along with the goods in question and your refund request. If your package had a return label provided, you should include that as well.
• Once the refund process is complete, you can ask your customs broker (if you have one) to fill out a B2G claim form to refund the customs duties and taxes you’ve paid, assuming the shipping company does not provide this service already. The customs duties that you paid to either the shipping company or directly to customs upon receiving your goods will be reimbursed. For instance, for clothes and shoes, customs duties are typically 18%. There are some things to keep in mind, though:
  • You may not have had to pay customs duties in the first place due to trade agreements such as NAFTA or CETA.
  • Your goods’ SH codes and rules of origin, which determine whether the customs duties exemptions of NAFTA, CETA and similar agreements apply to them.
  • Brokerage costs may apply.
• If you’re taking care of the refund process yourself, you may fill out the document included on the back of your customs declaration known as a “discharge” and send it to the CBSA along with proof of export (product return) and refund confirmation from the company that originally sold you the goods.

2- In the case of an exchange, the steps are slightly different:

• If you have already paid customs duties the first time around and do not wish to pay them twice, make sure your request for exchange contains a commercial invoice that states the exchange is under warranty.
• Ask the company you bought the goods from to clearly write on any documents relevant to your new goods that the new shipment follows an exchange.
• Let the shipping company or the customs officer know that an exchange took place.

Keep a few things in mind:

• Companies may refuse to give you a refund in some circumstances.
• Some companies may give you a refund but will ask you to pay the transportation costs.
• The company may ask you to carry out the refund or the exchange at one of their local stores. Keep an eye on the fees they ask of you at that point.