Offering Route Shipping Protection on your online store comes at no cost to you.
So why do we need your banking information?
Route Shipping Protection works like a product in your store, which your customers can choose to purchase as part of their order. You collect the amount they pay for it, then transfer the funds to us on a weekly basis. If that order suffers loss, theft, or damage while in transit, Route issues an immediate reorder or refund to the customer, and then reimburses you for these costs on a weekly basis.
In short, we require your billing information only to exchange the funds owed to us by your customers (the billing process), and owed to you by Route (the reimbursement process).
Here’s how it works in more detail.
The Billing Process
When your customer adds Route Shipping Protection at checkout, they pay a small fee (the premium) to protect their package. To enable a single transaction for your customer, you collect the total amount they paid for their order and the Route Shipping Protection premium. The following week, we tally up the fees you collected on our behalf, and then you transfer those funds from your account to ours.
You can find a snapshot of these weekly transactions on the Payments page in the Finance tab of your Merchant Portal. You can also download an invoice for your records or a more detailed CSV file with order-by-order information from this page. For full transparency, we also email an invoice to your billing contact on file in the Merchant Portal at the beginning of each week, ahead of the transaction.
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The Reimbursements Process
When something goes wrong with a Route-protected order, we help resolve the issue quickly with a refund or replacement order. In most cases, this transaction happens automatically via your online store through our proprietary AIR (Automated Issue Resolution) technology. The following week, we tally up the cost of all the refunds and replacements processed through your store, and reimburse you for them in a lump sum.
You can find a snapshot of completed weekly transactions on the Reimbursements page in the Finance tab of your Merchant Portal. You can also download a detailed PDF file with order-by-order information from this page.
Learn more:
Note: The above applies to standard Route Shipping Protection. Merchants on a full coverage or hybrid pricing model are responsible for shipping protection premiums. Merchants may incur other charges if your plan requires them.
Watch the video below to learn more.