Wholesale does not have a returns policy in the sense a DTC brand means it. There is no thirty-day window, no prepaid label, no change of mind. A shop bought the stock, the risk moved to them at the invoice, and that transfer is most of why the channel is worth running.
What wholesale has instead is a narrow set of situations where you owe the account something: the goods arrived broken, the goods arrived short, or the goods were not what was ordered. Everything else is a negotiation, and the answer is usually no.
The three things that are genuinely your problem
Damage in transit. The carton was crushed, the jars cracked, the lids came off. This is yours to fix regardless of whose carrier it was, because the shop bought a working case and did not get one.
Shortage. They opened two cartons and found eleven units where twelve should have been, or three cases arrived where you invoiced four. Also yours, and usually a picking error rather than a theft.
Wrong goods or defect. The wrong scent, a label applied upside down, a batch that failed after a week on a shelf. Yours, and the honest response is faster and more generous than the situation strictly requires.
That is the list. Slow sales, a buying mistake, a change of merchandising direction, a shop closing — those are the shop's risk, and the reason they paid half of retail rather than full price.
Write the window down before you need it
A returns clause that exists before a problem is a procedure. One invented during a problem is a concession, and concessions become precedent.
Three numbers belong in your terms. The reporting window for damage and shortages, which should be short — three to five business days from delivery is normal and defensible. The requirement that damage is noted on the delivery paperwork before signing. And the evidence you need, which is photographs of the outer carton, the packaging inside and the damaged goods, before anything is unpacked further.
Add one sentence on what happens next: you replace or credit, at your discretion, and the damaged goods are either disposed of locally or returned at your cost. Never at theirs. The full set of clauses this sits among is in wholesale terms and conditions.
Handle the first one fast, argue with the carrier later
The most valuable thing you can do on a damage report is resolve it before you know whose fault it is.
A shop that reports two broken candles on Monday and has replacements on Thursday tells other shop owners about you. A shop that waits three weeks while you open a carrier claim tells other shop owners about you too, differently.
So: acknowledge the same day, ship the replacement immediately, and pursue the claim on your own time. Keep the photographs, the delivery note and the carton dimensions, because carriers pay documented claims and decline everything else. If the same route or the same product keeps generating damage, the answer is packaging rather than paperwork, which is covered in wholesale shipping.
Track what it costs you. A damage rate that stays a small fraction of shipments is a cost of doing business. One that keeps growing is a design problem in the case pack.
Replacement or credit note
Two ways to settle, and the choice matters more than it looks.
| Settlement | Best for | Watch out |
|---|---|---|
| Replacement goods | Damage, shortages, wrong items | Costs you freight twice |
| Credit note | Accounts that reorder regularly | Sits on your books until used |
| Refund | Rare, closing accounts | Cash out, nothing recovered |
Replacement is usually right. The shop wanted product, not money, and a credit note against a future order keeps the relationship pointed forward.
A credit note is better when the shipment is imminent anyway — add the replacements to the next order and credit the difference, saving a freight run. Issue it as a numbered document that references the original invoice, because an unnumbered credit agreed by email is a reconciliation problem six months later. How it lands in the books is in wholesale bookkeeping.
Cash refunds should be genuinely exceptional. Once an account learns that unsatisfactory stock converts to cash, the definition of unsatisfactory tends to widen.
The request to send back unsold stock
Every brand meets this eventually. A shop bought four cases in spring, sold one, and asks in autumn whether they can send the rest back.
The default answer is no, and it is not unkind. They chose the products, they set the price, they controlled the display and the staff conversation, and the margin they earn exists precisely because they took that risk. Accepting returns of unsold stock quietly converts your wholesale business into consignment without any of the upside — the comparison is set out in wholesale versus consignment.
There are two sane exceptions. A genuinely defective batch, in which case it was never a sell-through problem. And a strategic account you want to keep, where a partial swap — take back two cases of the slow scent, send two of the fast one, no money changes hands — costs you freight and keeps a shelf full of product that will actually sell. Do that once, deliberately, and say out loud that it is a one-off.
If you want a softer answer that is not open-ended, offer a small, stated allowance on the next order instead. A buyer who gets something feels heard, and you have not opened the door to returns.
Shortages and the paperwork that prevents them
Most shortage disputes are not disputes about honesty. They are disputes about counting, and they are almost entirely preventable at the packing bench.
Three habits remove nearly all of them. Label every carton with its number in the shipment, one of three, so a shop signing for two knows immediately something is missing. Put a packing slip listing carton contents inside or on each carton, not only in the first one. And photograph the stacked, labelled shipment before it leaves.
When a shortage is reported anyway, ask which cartons arrived and what the labels said. That question usually resolves it in one email, because the answer is either a carrier problem with a missing carton or a picking error you can see in your own photograph. The upstream discipline is in wholesale order management.
Chargebacks, when accounts get larger
Independent shops ask. Chains deduct.
Larger retailers handle everything above — damage, shortage, late delivery, labelling errors — by taking money off your invoice and telling you afterwards. The deduction arrives as a short code on a remittance, and the burden of disputing it is entirely yours, within a window that is usually shorter than you would like.
Two defences. Read the compliance schedule in the vendor pack before accepting the account, so you know what each failure costs. And reconcile every remittance against every invoice rather than banking the number that arrives — unexamined deductions are how a profitable account becomes an unprofitable one without anybody noticing.
If your account list is not yet at the point where any of this comes up, the useful work is upstream. Paste your product link into WholesalePilot and look at the preview of retailers that stock similar products, then build the account base that will eventually generate these problems.
Questions brands ask about wholesale returns
Should I accept returns of unsold stock? As a rule, no. Consider a swap rather than a return for an account you want to keep, and treat it as an exception you name out loud.
How long should the damage window be? Three to five business days from delivery. Long enough for a shop to unpack, short enough that the carrier claim is still live.
Who pays return freight on damaged goods? You do. Better still, tell them to dispose of it locally and skip the freight entirely — photographs are enough evidence.
What if a buyer reports damage repeatedly? Look at your packaging first, then look at the pattern. A single account with damage on every shipment is either a difficult delivery point or a habit, and both are worth a direct conversation.