How to Set Up Royal Mail Returns on Shopify

1 October 2026 · Updated 21 October 2026

If you sell on Shopify in the UK, most of your returns will travel back with Royal Mail. Customers know it, there’s a Post Office or Parcel Locker near almost everyone, and if you already post orders through Click & Drop, your returns can go through the same account. The question isn’t really which carrier to use, it’s how much of the work you want to do yourself. Here are the three setups I see most, from the most manual to the least.

Option 1: by hand in Click & Drop

This is where most stores start. A customer emails asking to return something, you check the order, create a return label in Royal Mail Click & Drop, download the PDF and email it to them.

It works, and it costs nothing extra beyond the postage. The problem is that every step is yours: reading the email, finding the order, typing the address, sending the label, then remembering to refund when the parcel arrives. At five returns a month that’s fine. At fifty, it’s most of a day.

A few tips if you’re doing it this way:

• Save your return address in Click & Drop so you aren’t retyping it every time.
• Use a tracked service. It costs a little more, but it settles the “I sent it back weeks ago” conversation for you.
• Put a returns page on your store explaining how to ask for a return, so the first email at least has the order number in it.

Option 2: Shopify’s own returns, plus labels from Click & Drop

Shopify has self-serve returns built in. Customers who sign in to their account can request a return on eligible orders, based on the return rules you set under Settings → Policies. You approve the request in Shopify Admin.

That handles the request side nicely, but in the UK you’ll often still be creating the Royal Mail label yourself in Click & Drop and attaching it to the return. Customers also need to sign in, so anyone who checked out as a guest has to email you instead.

Option 3: automatic labels on approval

This is the setup I built AYD Returns & Exchanges for, so take this section with that in mind. The idea is simple: when you approve a return, the Royal Mail label is created for you through the Click & Drop API and sent to the customer in Shopify’s own “return approved” email. Nobody downloads or attaches anything.

To set it up you need a Click & Drop business account (not the personal one) with a payment method on file. Then:

1. Sign in at business.parcel.royalmail.com and go to Settings → Integrations.
2. Click Add New Integration and choose Click & Drop API.
3. Fill in the form and choose Save and connect.
4. Open the new integration to reveal the API key, and copy it.
5. In the app, go to Settings → Royal Mail, paste the key, then add your return address and pick the Royal Mail service you want returns to use.

From then on, customers request returns from a returns page on your own storefront (signed in or as a guest, with their order number and email), and approving a request sends the label automatically. The tracking number and the label also show on the app’s Returns page, so you can re-send or check a parcel without opening Click & Drop, and guests can download their label from the returns page too.

What about customers without a printer?

This comes up constantly, and it’s an easy one to solve. Royal Mail can print a label at the counter from a QR code, so with an approved return the customer gets a QR code alongside the printable label. They show it on their phone at a Post Office or Parcel Locker and the label is printed for them. In my experience this removes most of the “I can’t print it” emails on its own.

Which should you choose?

• A handful of returns a month: doing it by hand in Click & Drop is perfectly reasonable.
• You mainly need customers to request returns themselves: Shopify’s built-in returns cover that, as long as your customers sign in.
• Labels are eating your time, or guests can’t return: automate it, so approving a return is the only step you take.

Whichever you pick, the biggest wins are the same: a clear returns page, a tracked service, and a QR code option for customers without a printer. If you’re also wondering what you’re legally required to offer, I’ve written up the UK rules for online returns too.