INTO THE AM · Returns Policy Review
Short answer: yes, and today they keep the pack discount on it. Here is the finding, the risk, how big it is, and a proposed fix that matches what True Classic does. Reviewing for sign-off: Matt.
A customer can return just one shirt out of a 3-pack or 9-pack today, and Loop already allows it.
Our packs (the "Custom 3 / 6 / 9 Pack" products) are build-your-own. The customer picks each shirt, so on the order each shirt is its own line item, carrying its share of the pack discount. Loop processes returns per line item, so any one item is independently returnable. There is no "pack" object that forces all-or-nothing.
Evidence: pulled from live Loop data, 536 ITAM returns over the last 60 days. Real example: order #40994846 returned a single tee that was part of a discounted pack. Partial returns are the norm, not the exception (155 single-item returns in that window).
Each returned item is refunded at its discounted pack price, and Loop does not re-price the items the customer keeps.
The gamble: buy the biggest pack purely to unlock the lowest per-shirt price, then return everything except the one you actually wanted, and keep that one ~$9.64 under its real price. The bigger the pack, the bigger the per-shirt discount, the bigger the incentive to do this.
From the same 60-day Loop pull (ITAM):
The actual leak is the discount kept on the retained items, not the returned ones. Directional estimate: roughly 1,800 partial-pack returns a year, each leaving ~1–2 discounted shirts in the customer's hands at ~$10 of retained discount, lands around $18k–36k a year in margin given away.
Caveat: that is order-of-magnitude. The exact figure needs the kept-side, order-level data from Shopify (the returns API only shows what came back). I can pull the precise number if we want it nailed before deciding.
On a partial return, recalculate the pack discount tier the customer still qualifies for and adjust the refund. They only ever keep the discount they actually earned.
True Classic does exactly this. Their "Add More Save More" packs are tiered quantity pricing, and their policy states:
"If you return an item that was part of that deal, your refund may be adjusted based on the deal tier you still meet after the return."
So if a customer keeps 3 shirts out of a 9-pack, those 3 re-price to the 3-pack tier, and the difference comes out of the refund. The "buy 9, keep 1" gambit stops working because the 1 they keep re-prices to single-unit pricing.
The implementation catch in Loop: our pack discount is currently a per-item automatic discount, which is the one structure Loop does not re-tier (it only spreads the discount, or, for a Buy-X-Get-Y style deal, deducts the exact promo savings when a return breaks the threshold). So step one is confirming exactly how the pack discount is built in Shopify, then either restructuring it as a threshold deal Loop recognizes, or adding a returns workflow rule. That is the real work, and it is doable.