What’s new in Zorem Returns 1.6.2 – 5 features that change how you handle returns

Returns are usually the part of the business no one wants to think about – until they pile up. A spreadsheet here, a manual refund there, a customer asking why they can’t swap a t-shirt for a hoodie, and suddenly your support inbox is buried. Most return tools handle the paperwork of returns. They don’t help you reduce them, recover the revenue, or turn an unhappy customer into a repeat one.

It doesn’t have to work that way.

The latest release of Zorem Returns – version 1.6.2 – adds five features built around exactly that problem: less manual work, more recovered revenue, and a return experience that keeps customers in your store instead of sending them to a competitor.

Here’s what’s new and how each feature changes your day-to-day.

1. Keep the Item – now at the product level

1. Cross-product exchange – swap for any product in your catalogue
Until now, exchanges were limited to variations of the same product. Version 1.6.2 lets customers exchange for any purchasable product in your store. Swap a small t-shirt for a different style hoodie, a blue mug for a black tumbler – whatever keeps the sale. You also control how price differences are handled: create a pending payment order if the new item costs more, or issue an automatic store credit coupon if it costs less.

2. Per-product “Keep the Item” setting
You can now enable Keep the Item on individual products from the product edit screen – not just as a global rule. Open any product, scroll to the Returns section, and tick Keep the Item. Customers who request a return on that product will be refunded without needing to ship it back. Perfect for low-cost items, hygiene products, or anything where reverse logistics costs more than the product itself.

3. Extended return window for premium customers
You can now grant longer return windows to specific customers – VIPs, wholesale buyers, subscription members – directly from their user profile. Enable Per-User Return Window Extension in the plugin settings, then go to Users → Edit User and set a custom number of days (up to 90). It overrides your store-wide window for that customer only, so loyalty perks finally have somewhere to live.

4. Returns Analytics Dashboard
A new analytics view inside the plugin shows you the numbers that actually matter: return rate, revenue lost vs revenue retained, top returned products, top return reasons per product, and a resolution split (approved, rejected, completed, exchanged). Filter by date range to spot trends before they become problems – for example, a SKU with a 22% return rate flagged as “wrong size” tells you to fix the size guide, not the product.

5. SMS notifications for return status updates
Email is no longer the only channel. With the SMS for WooCommerce integration, customers get instant SMS updates when their return is received, approved, completed, or rejected. Same for exchanges. Templates support order variables, work alongside email independently, and dramatically cut the “where’s my refund?” support tickets.

What changes for your store

Before 1.6.2	After 1.6.2
Keep the Item was global only	Per-product control
One return window for all	Custom window per customer
No native returns reporting	Built-in analytics dashboard
Email-only notifications	SMS + email channels
Exchanges locked to same product	Any product in your catalogue
Refund-or-lose-the-sale	Recover revenue with cross-product swaps

Why these features matter

The pattern across all five is the same – give you fewer manual steps, give the customer fewer reasons to ask for a full refund, and give your store more chances to keep the sale. Per-product Keep the Item lowers reverse logistics costs. Per-user windows let you reward loyalty without hard-coding rules. The analytics dashboard turns returns from a cost centre into a feedback loop. SMS cuts support load. Cross-product exchanges convert refund requests into retained revenue.

That last one is the biggest shift. An exchange is a held sale; a refund is a lost one. Letting a customer swap for something else in your catalogue – instead of walking away – is the difference between a return that costs you money and one that doesn’t.

Update or get started

If you already run Zorem Returns, the update is in your dashboard now. If you don’t, version 1.6.2 is the right moment to look at it. Returns are not going away – but with the right tooling, they stop being a drain and start being something you can actually measure and improve.