Refunds and Chargebacks are expensive:

When your customer requests a refund, or worse, initiates a chargeback case, both you and TrepStar receive no money for the transaction because all money has been returned to the customer including all shipping charges. In addition, you are charged for the product TrepStar shipped to your customer since we've incurred our costs to manufacture (product, postage, handling). We also pass along fees our merchant service charges us: Refund fee ($15.00) or chargeback fee ($30.00). TrepStar acts simply as your wholesaler that produces and ships your product to your customer. TrepStar charges low wholesale prices with a small profit margin per unit. We don't share in your retail proceeds, and we have done our part to take the order, manufacture, and ship your product to your customer so we need to be paid in full for that.

Think of the costs this way:

1. TrepStar had to return all of the money collected back to the customer including shipping charges. We do not see a penny.
2. TrepStar had to spend extra time dealing with the refund or chargeback.
3. TrepStar is charged fees by our payment processor to deal with refunds and chargebacks.
4. TrepStar is out all of these costs PLUS the original product material, postage, and handling costs.

You charge retail prices which should be high enough to cover your expenses including returns and chargebacks. TrepStar charges you for product, postage, and handling regardless of whether there is a refund or not since we have no control over your customer's behaviour and do not share in your higher retail prices.

We do not ask customers to return product. It just leads to more problems, takes more time, and we have found, does not work. These days, with Amazon, people expect a lot. They want their money back for shipping, handling, and the product. The first thing the customer always said when we asked them to return the product was "Then send me a postage label with paid return postage on it...". We do not do this because not only would it cost you more, but we do not restock product and if we did, that would just cost you more too. Therefore, when a customer asks for a refund, for any reason, we have to manually issue the refund. This costs you less than if we ignore their request which invariably leads to them issuing a chargeback. Chargebacks are just forced refunds. The customer always wins these disputes because they either say they did not order it or "it didn't work". Either way, all of the money gets refunded PLUS we are billed a chargeback fee which we pass onto you. It's also not our policy to fight with customers. If they want their money back, they get it. If you want product shipped back to you, ask your customer and/or give them return postage and have them ship product to your location.

Sometimes a customer does not ask for a refund at first, but simply starts a chargeback case without asking TrepStar for a refund. This is more costly than a simple refund request because there is the additional chargeback fee that we are charged, which we pass onto you.

It comes down to this: TrepStar bills you, the retailer, for the cost of goods, plus a refund/chargeback fee when this occurs. We do not share in your higher retail prices which would alleviate our risk. Our charges to you are barely above cost which reflect this "wholesale" relationship. This is why retailers normally charge 2 or 3 times what it costs them to produce a product. Doing that helps cover your losses for returns and chargebacks.

The last thing TrepStar wants is to deal with lots of refunds or chargebacks. They take extra time. They are very costly for everyone. If you have an unusual amount of refunds or chargebacks, we may block the use of our retail order gateway to avoid a situation where you owe TrepStar money.

If you want more control over the refund or chargeback process, please consider using a more robust shopping cart (like Shopify etc.) We provide our retail buy now buttons/cart virtually free of charge, which is very important to publishers with medium to low sales volume since choosing any other shopping cart usually means most or all of your profits are paid to them in monthly fees.

Learn more about fees