My brother-in-law keeps calling his Shopify returns "lost revenue" and I finally snapped at Thanksgiving
He runs a small candle shop online and every time we talk he complains about losing money on returns, like the $18 candle is somehow a loss when the customer already paid him once. Last week at dinner he showed me his books and there it was, a line item for $2,140 in "lost revenue" that was just refunds from October, no mention of the fact that he sold $31,000 that same month. The thing nobody gets wrong more than this is that refunds are not losses, they are the cost of doing business, and if you price your stuff right you already baked that in. He also never counts the shipping he charged back on those orders, which covered most of it anyway. Does anyone here actually track a return rate number for their shop, or do you just watch the top line and hope for the best?