Helm › Helm University › Track 6 › Lesson 6.3
Lesson 6.3Who pays return shipping
Two answers, decided by whether the order was wrong. Helm never funds a return, and unlike the big marketplaces you do not pay when a buyer simply changes their mind.
Prefer to listen? This is the same lesson, word for word. The text below is the transcript.
This lesson prepares you to: Apply Helm's split by fault rule and say who pays in any given return scenario.
The rule
If the order was wrong, the seller pays to bring it back. If nothing was wrong and the buyer changed their mind, the buyer pays. There is no third answer and no discretionary middle ground.
| Who pays | When |
|---|---|
| The seller | Wrong item, missing pieces, significantly different from the listing, faulty on arrival, or damaged or lost in transit. |
| The buyer | Nothing was wrong. Changed their mind, ordered the wrong size or variant, or no longer wants it. |
Why transit damage sits with the seller
This is the line sellers push back on, so here is the reasoning rather than just the rule.
You chose the carrier, you chose the packaging, and you hold the receipt. You are the only party in the transaction who can make a claim against that carrier, and you are the only party who can change the packing so it does not happen again. A buyer cannot do either. Helm cannot do either.
Every large marketplace lands in the same place, and TikTok Shop is explicit about it: damaged goods are treated as a seller fault reason and the seller carries the return cost. We are not going to tell you we found a cleverer answer, because we did not.
Where Helm is better than the marketplaces you are comparing us to
On TikTok Shop, the seller pays return shipping even when the buyer simply no longer wants the item. Buyer remorse is a seller cost there.
On Helm it is not. If the order was exactly what you listed, exactly what they ordered, and they changed their mind, the postage back is theirs. You are not funding somebody else's second thoughts.
Why we can afford to do this and they apparently cannot
Because it costs Helm nothing. We are not subsidising the difference, we are just not taking it out of you. A rule that moves a cost from the seller to the person who caused it is free for the platform and worth real money to you, which makes it a strange thing for anyone to have got wrong.
Helm does not fund returns
Being straight about it: Helm does not pay return shipping in any scenario. We are a young marketplace and a platform that quietly absorbs postage on every failed delivery is a platform that runs out of money and then changes the rule on you in a year. We would rather publish the version we can keep.
Scenarios, with the answer
| What happened | Who pays the return |
|---|---|
| Buyer ordered a medium, wanted a large | Buyer |
| You shipped a medium, they ordered a large | Seller |
| Listing said cotton, item is polyester | Seller |
| It arrived, it is exactly as listed, they do not like it | Buyer |
| Two of three pieces in the set are missing | Seller |
| Mug arrived cracked | Seller, then claim it from the carrier |
| Item is genuinely faulty out of the box | Seller |
| It never arrived at all | Seller, and there is usually no return to pay for |
| Buyer changed their mind but the listing was also misleading | Seller. If both are true, it counts as a seller fault |
The case where nothing goes back
Sometimes return postage costs more than the item is worth. Sending a four dollar item back for nine dollars of postage makes everybody poorer. In those cases Helm may refund the buyer without asking for the item back. That is a Helm decision rather than something you have to offer.
The refund itself still works exactly as lesson 6.2 describes, which means it still counts toward your refund rate whoever was at fault.
How to make this rule work for you
Every line in the seller column is preventable, and they are all preventable in the same two places: the listing and the packing bench.
- Photograph what you are actually sending, not the manufacturer's render.
- Write the measurements down. "Runs small" prevents more returns than any policy.
- Say what is in the box. Missing pieces is usually a listing that implied more than it shipped.
- Pack for the worst leg of the journey, not the average one.
- Photograph the parcel before it goes. Four seconds, and it is the difference between a carrier claim you win and one you do not.
How this is applied today
This is Helm's published policy and it is applied by the people handling your claim. It is not automated, so there is no button that computes fault and prints a label. What publishing the rule gives you is a predictable answer and something to point at, not an instant one.
The same rule, in shorter form, is in Shop Policies.
Still being written: lesson 6.4 on refunds that do not need a return, and lesson 6.5 on disputing a refund decision. They are marked Coming on the track page and they will not appear until they exist.