Ship repairs and manage loaners

The Shipments tab moves a piece to and from the bench — to the customer, back from them, or out to a repair vendor — and the Loaners card lends stock out while their own piece is away.

Before you begin

• You need the Update repairs permission to buy a label or enter a shipment, and to issue, return or convert a loaner.
• Voiding a label needs the Edit posted costs permission.
• The repair must be open — closed, rejected and canceled repairs refuse all of these with "This repair is closed. Reopen it first."

1. Read the Shipments tab

Every shipment on the repair lists its Direction, Status, Carrier, Tracking (linked to the carrier's tracking page), which Units it carries, its Cost, and when it Shipped / delivered — the date only, for example Delivered Nov 8, 2026; hover it for the time. With no shipments yet, the tab reads: "Send the customer a prepaid label for their piece, or ship it back when the repair is done. Jewelry defaults to a padded mailer."

A shipment covers one of four legs, each running through the same statuses — Draft → Label created → In transit → Delivered (or Exception, or Void):

Direction	What it moves
Customer → us	The customer's piece on its way in.
Us → customer	The finished piece on its way back.
Us → repair vendor	A piece going out to a vendor or plater.
Repair vendor → us	A piece coming back from a vendor or plater.

A delivered Customer → us leg updates the warehouse's expected-inbound list. A delivered Us → customer leg moves the case to Returned and starts its auto-close countdown. Resolving a unit as Repaired — or a return-as-is outcome that ships back — opens a Draft outbound shipment for it automatically; this tab is where you actually buy or ship it. Every label's cost becomes its own freight cost line on the cost record, billed per your warranty policy's shipping rule.

2. Buy a shipping label

Click Buy label and set:

• Direction and the Units in the box — pre-selected with the units this leg would carry (for example Unit 1 · Pearl Drop Earrings): the resolved units for a return to the customer, or the customer's units when none are resolved yet. What the field shows is exactly what's saved.
• Package — a padded mailer by default (weight and dimensions), editable for anything larger.
• Bill to — left blank, it falls back to the piece's coverage.

Click Get rates to rate-shop your connected shipping providers for that direction and package — cheapest first, with carrier, service, provider and estimated days — then pick one and click Buy label. The label's cost posts as a freight cost line.

Jewelry can't ship through a 3PL warehouse's own fulfillment

A customer-owned outbound shipment never creates a sales-order fulfillment — there's no stock of yours to deduct. When the repair's warehouse is a 3PL integration, a warning explains to buy or enter the label manually instead, print the repair packing slip, and hand both to the 3PL.

A second Buy label on the same shipment while one is already purchasing is refused, and a retry after a failed purchase reuses the same attempt with the carrier rather than buying a second label. Buying a label for a Customer → us leg emails the customer the Repair shipping instructions message with the label attached.

3. Enter a shipment manually

For a label bought outside SKU.io — at the post office, say — click Enter shipment and fill in Direction, Units, Carrier, Service, Tracking number, Cost, Bill to and Status. Units opens with the same pre-selection as Buy label, so check it rather than build it. Click Save shipment, and a confirmation names it by carrier and tracking number — for example "The Shipment 'USPS 9400111899223197428' created successfully" (with no tracking number, by its leg and units, such as Us to customer, Unit 1). Its cost still joins the cost record. If the units and direction already match an untouched draft — for example, one the resolve step opened — this fills that draft instead of creating a second shipment.

Setting the status straight to In transit or Delivered on an outbound leg requires every included unit to already be Resolved — "Resolve unit … before shipping it back: the customer is emailed that the repair is complete."

4. Manage an existing shipment

From a shipment's row menu:

• Buy label for this shipment — on a Draft or Void row.
• Mark in transit / delivered / exception — whichever moves apply from its current status.
• Void label — refunds the label with the carrier where they allow it, and removes its freight cost line; the confirmation names the label by carrier and tracking number. It's refused while a purchase is in flight on the same shipment, and a refund that only comes back pending leaves the shipment untouched until it settles later.
• Download its label or packing slip — the slip is a PDF rendered through your PDF template system, so your store's own template wins, then your tenant's, then a built-in default.

5. Loaners

The Loaners card, on the Costs & billing tab, lends a piece while the customer's own is being repaired. With none issued yet, it reads: "No loaners. Lend a piece while the customer's is being repaired; it ships on a zero-priced order and comes back on an RMA."

Issue a loaner

Click Issue loaner, pick the Product (type part of a name or SKU, and the list reads Searching… until the matches arrive; once picked, the field shows its name, for example Huggie Hoop Earrings – Gold; each option in the list has its SKU underneath), and set the Due back window in days after the repair completes (7 by default). If the product tracks serial numbers, a Serial number field appears too: pick the exact unit to lend, or leave it blank (Any available unit (FIFO)) and fulfillment picks one. It lists only units in stock at the repair's warehouse; if none qualify it reads No eligible serial numbers in stock. SKU.io ships it on a zero-priced order through the ordinary fulfillment process — loaner stock stays brand-owned the whole time — and opens an expected-return RMA for it. A confirmation names the loaner by SKU — for example "The Loaner 'HG-EAR-HUG-GLD' created successfully", with the serial number in brackets when you picked one — and the new row (product, an Issued chip and the loaner order's number) appears in the card straight away. Issuing is blocked while the case is closed, rejected or canceled.

The Product picker lists loaner-eligible products only, and the caption under it says so: "Only loaner-eligible products are listed. To add one, open the product and tick Loaner eligible under Overview → Details → Edit." If a search finds nothing, the list reads "No loaner-eligible products match."

To let a product be lent, open it from Products, click Edit on the Details card of its Overview tab, tick Loaner eligible, and save. The Details card then shows a check beside Loaner eligible. The product also needs stock at the repair's warehouse for the loaner order to ship.

Mark a loaner returned

Click Returned once the piece is physically back; the confirmation reads, for example, "Loaner HG-EAR-HUG-GLD marked returned." This just flips the status flag; the physical return itself goes through the ordinary return-receipt flow, which reverses the loaner's cost the normal way.

Sell the loaner instead

If the customer wants to keep it, click Sell it, set a Price (or leave it for the list price), and confirm. SKU.io raises a charge order at that price with a payment request sent immediately (the confirmation names the order — "Loaner <SKU> sold on <order number>."), and closes the expected-return RMA — it's cancelled, not received, so it stops chasing the piece back. Nothing is rewritten on the books: the loaner's cost was already recognised the moment it shipped. Sell it is refused once the loaner has already been returned, and selling an already-converted loaner changes nothing.

Overdue loaners

A loaner's Due back chip turns red and reads Overdue once its due date passes, and the due date itself is recalculated — completion date plus the due-back window — the moment the repair actually resolves, for any loaner still out. An overdue loaner triggers the Repair loaner due alert; see Choose which alerts your team gets.

Next steps

• Resolve a unit — the outcomes that open an outbound shipment in the first place.
• Quote, cost and bill a repair — where every freight label's cost shows up.
• Manage a vendor dispatch — the vendor-leg shipments this tab also lists.
• Buy a shipping label with Shippo — the rate-shop and label-purchase mechanics a repair shipment reuses.
• Vendor dispatch & recovery claim status reference — every status a vendor leg can carry.

Video transcript

Shipments and loaners live on each repair, under Orders, then Repairs, then the List page. To narrow the results, use the Status and Coverage filters above the table. Then open the one that needs a shipment or a loaner for the customer. Select the Shipments tab, where every shipment for this repair appears. Legs to and from the customer, or a vendor, share one list. Click Buy label to start a new label. Choose a direction, the units in the box, and a package. The default is a padded mailer. Get rates compares prices from your connected shipping providers. Offers come back cheapest first, ready to buy as a label. To stop here, click Cancel to close the dialog. Nothing is charged to the repair. For a label bought at the post office, click Enter shipment. The Units field already lists the piece in the parcel. Record the carrier, the tracking number, and the cost. Click Save shipment, and the new shipment joins the list on this tab. A confirmation names the carrier and tracking number. Each shipment row has its own actions menu. Mark each one in transit, delivered, or as an exception. Void label cancels the label with the carrier, and removes its cost. Select the Costs and billing tab at the top of the repair. Further down, below the quotes, sits the Loaners card. To lend a piece while theirs is away, click Issue loaner. The dialog needs a product and the length of the loan. Only loaner-eligible products are listed here; search, then select the piece. Then set how long the loan lasts, in days after the repair. Click Issue loaner to confirm the loan. The piece ships on a zero-priced order, with an expected return. Click Returned when the loaned piece arrives at your warehouse. To sell the loaner instead, use the Sell it button.