BURIUS

The working side of the house

Second thoughts: returns, swaps and getting it wrong

What to do when the thing that arrived is not the thing you needed.

Returns are handled where you bought

The retailer that took your order runs the return. They have the order number, the payment method and the return window, and the process on their side is quick and well worn. Start there.

We cannot issue a refund or a label, because no money ever reached us. That is not a brush-off; it is simply where the transaction lives.

Wrong size is the common one

By a distance, the most returned item in our catalog is a squeeze bottle one size away from the right one, followed by a cake drum that was the same diameter as the cake. Both are sizing mistakes, and both are things a two-line email to us would have prevented.

So if you are between two sizes, ask before you order. We will tell you which one we would take, including when the answer is neither.

When it is our fault

If a product failed rather than disappointed — a cap that would not seal, a clip that snapped on first fit, a cable that frayed early — we want it back on the bench. Write to the desk and we will arrange it.

Those returns are not a cost to us. A failed part in hand is worth more than ten reports of it, and it is how the next batch gets changed.

What we learn from it

Every return that reaches us gets logged against the model. When a pattern shows up, the listing text changes first — usually because we described something ambiguously — and the product changes second.

Several pages on this site read the way they do because of a return. The fill line on the bottle pages is one of them.