Return-to-Sender (RTS) happens when a carrier can't complete a delivery and sends the parcel back. It affects a small share of cross-border shipments and is common to all cross-border fulfillment. Most RTS cases come from an address that is invalid or incomplete.
This article covers how to resolve an RTS order for your customer, who covers RTS costs, what happens to the returned parcel, and how to prevent RTS in the first place.
Why orders are returned to sender
A carrier marks a shipment as RTS for one of these reasons:
The shipping address is invalid or incomplete. This is the most common cause.
The carrier made repeated delivery attempts and none succeeded.
The customer refused the package.
The customer couldn't be reached.
Get your customer their order first
You don't need to wait for the returned parcel to resolve the order. A returned parcel can take anywhere from 7 to 60 days to reach a regional warehouse, and tracking may not update during that time. Reshipping from your Portless inventory is the fastest way to get your customer their order.
Carrier tracking shows the parcel as returned to sender, or Portless flags it through a ticket or a shipping exception in the Merchant Portal. If tracking shows a failed delivery attempt on one of your orders, reach out to Support right away so they can check whether redirection is still an option.
Confirm the address with your customer before anything ships again.
Create the reshipment in Shopify by opening the original order, select More actions, then Duplicate. Adjust items if needed, enter the confirmed address, select Mark as paid, then Create order. The new order pushes to Portless automatically. See Creating a Reshipment Order on Shopify for more detail.
Submit the order for review to Portless Support the original order number, its tracking number, and the new reshipment order number. Support confirms the cause of each RTS from tracking.
Cost responsibility
Portless doesn't cover return or reshipment costs when an order is returned to sender because of an invalid or insufficient address, repeated failed delivery attempts, or a customer who couldn't be reached.
Orders returned to sender because of a bad address are also not eligible for lost package claims. See Handling Lost in Transit Orders for Core Countries for details.
What happens to the returned parcel
Returned parcels go to a regional warehouse in the same country or region as the delivery address, not back to the Portless fulfillment center. These warehouses are operated by carrier and logistics partners, and arrival typically takes 7 to 60 days.
Why parcels don't return to China or Vietnam
Sending a parcel back to the fulfillment center requires a retrieval fee that is charged per batch, not per order. A single return can mean paying to retrieve every remaining item in a batch of over 1,000 orders. Batch retrieval is also only available in certain markets (the US, UK, and AU). Because of this, returned parcels don't come back to the fulfillment center. They stay in the destination country until they're redirected or disposed of. For planning purposes, treat RTS units as no longer part of your sellable inventory.
Your options when the parcel arrives
When the parcel reaches the regional warehouse, Portless will let you know and ask whether you'd like it redirected. Reply as soon as you can, since redirection is only possible while the parcel is still being held.
Option | What happens | Cost | Best when |
Resend to your customer | You provide a corrected address, and the parcel is redelivered.
Not every shipping channel supports this; the Support team will confirm whether it's available for your order. | Redelivery costs apply unless a carrier error or Portless handling caused the RTS. | You haven't reshipped yet and the address issue is resolved. |
Forward to your own local address | You provide an address in the same region, and Portless arranges forwarding. Addresses can't be set up in advance; you provide one when Portless contacts you. | A per-parcel forwarding fee, confirmed with you before the parcel is forwarded. | You want to recover the item, for example to restock locally. |
No action needed | The parcel is disposed of according to the carrier's or warehouse's policy. This is what happens if no instructions are received in time. | No charge. | You've already reshipped, or recovering the item would cost more than it's worth. |
For more on how returned inventory is handled, see Disposition of Returned Inventory.
Prevent RTS
Because most RTS cases start with the address, the most effective prevention happens before the order reaches Portless:
Put apartment and unit numbers in Address Line 2: Carriers often miss unit details placed in Address Line 1.
Send address changes to Portless too: If you edit an address in Shopify after the order is already in fulfillment, also make the change in the Merchant Portal in Portless.
Validate addresses at checkout: Portless blocks orders that fail its address format check, but an address that is correctly formatted and still wrong (for example, one digit off in a ZIP code) will pass and ship. Checkout validation is what catches those. On Shopify Plus, use a checkout address validation app like Loqate performs well for international addresses. On other Shopify plans, use a post-checkout address correction app with an import delay so corrections are made before orders push to Portless.
Offer package protection: Onward Checkout+ lets your customers protect their orders against loss, damage, and qualifying delays at checkout, and you earn a revenue share on premiums. See Enabling Package Protection with Onward.
See Address Format and Validation Rules for the full address requirements.