What happens to returned stock
Back on the shelf, into quarantine, or written off.
Every item on a return carries a disposition — what happens to the goods — chosen when the return is processed and executed the moment the return completes. Nothing moves before that.
Who can do this: whoever processes the return picks the disposition per item.
The three choices#
The item picker offers them in the app's own words:
- "Restock to SOH" — the goods are fine (condition Resalable): straight back into sellable stock, into the batch they came from where the product tracks batches. The stock history books it as a Return restock.
- "Add to quarantine" — the goods need looking at (Damaged / Used): they come back held, not sellable — a pending entry in Quarantine that names this return as its source. Inspect later, then release, dispose or send back to the supplier from there.
- "Do not restock" — the goods are not coming back at all (left with the customer, destroyed at the door). Nothing moves and no stock entry is written — the return item itself is the write-off record, and the returns analytics read it from there.
The safe default is quarantine#
When a disposition isn't stated, the system holds the goods rather than guessing: quarantine is the default. Discard is never assumed — the only choice that destroys value must be picked out loud.
Tracked products bring their paperwork with them: a serialized item's serial numbers must be named (each one currently sold), and a batch-tracked item names the batch it returns to.