1. Purpose
Need a carrier to collect stock from somewhere that isn't your warehouse? A marketplace fulfillment centre, a supplier, a trade show, a customer's site? This is how you buy that label, with the pickup address you actually want on it.
2. Scope
Buying a label whose collection point is an address your organization does not hold as a warehouse, and getting the goods booked back in when they land. Booking a pallet or freight collection is a different job, and SWI-008 covers that one.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Brand or client user | Adds a return reason code if the organization has none, then creates the return and types in the pickup address |
3PL admin or operator | Shops the rates, picks the service, and buys the label |
Receiving team | Books the goods in against the return when they arrive |
Worth knowing up front: those first two jobs usually sit with different people. A client login can build the whole thing and still not be able to buy the label, because buying labels needs Manage Shipping and most client roles only get View Shipping. Nothing on screen tells you this, so plan the handoff rather than discovering it at the last click.
4. When you need this
Reach for this whenever the goods are somewhere you don't operate and you need them brought back. The usual cases:
Marketplace stock coming home. TikTok, Amazon removals, anything sitting in someone else's fulfillment centre.
A supplier holding stock that needs collecting.
Stock stranded at a site you're winding down.
Anywhere you've looked at an order, gone hunting for the Ship From field, and found it greyed out as plain text.
That last one isn't a fault. On a normal order the collection point is always one of your own warehouses, so there's deliberately nothing to edit.
5. Key concept: the editable pickup address lives on a return order
This is the bit nobody guesses, and it's the whole document in one table.
Where you are | What the pickup address does |
|---|---|
An order | Fixed to the warehouse the goods are picked from. Displayed as text, never editable, by design. |
A return order | Freely typeable. Any address at all, and it does not have to be a warehouse or a customer you already hold. |
So the feature you want does exist. It's filed under Returns.
Don't let the name put you off. "Return" here just means goods travelling back into a warehouse rather than out of one, which is exactly your situation. You are not claiming anything against a customer order, and you don't need an original order to point at.
The one thing it does fix for you is the destination. A return always lands at one of your warehouses, so use this when the goods are genuinely coming back to you. If you need a label between two addresses you don't own, that's not this procedure, so talk to support.
6. Before you start
Three quick checks. Each one is a dead stop if you skip it.
Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
Your organization has at least one return reason code | The return form won't save without one, and most organizations have never set any up. If the Return Reason box shows a Configure link instead of a dropdown, that's you. Add one at Organization › Return Reason Codes, then come back. Anything sensible works, such as Marketplace Recall. |
You know which warehouse the goods are coming back to | You can only pick warehouses your login can see. On a 3PL account that means the sites shared with you, which may be fewer than the 3PL actually runs. If the one you want is missing, ask your 3PL to share it. |
The SKUs coming back exist, with real weights on them | Every return needs at least one line item, chosen from your existing products. A SKU carrying no weight gets rated as 1 oz, and your quote comes back far too cheap. |
7. Procedure: create the return with your pickup address
Go to Returns, then click New Return Order.
Leave the order search empty. Do not link an order. This is what unlocks the address fields, so it matters.
Under Return Items, search for the SKUs coming back and set the quantities.
Pick a Return Reason.
Set Warehouse to wherever the goods are landing. This fills in the destination for you.
In the Ship From block, type the collection address. Name, street, city, state, postal code, country.
Click Create Return Order.
8. Procedure: add phone numbers, then buy the label
The create screen has no phone field, and carriers get fussy about that on a collection. Sort it before shopping rates.
Open the return you just made and find the Addresses card.
Edit Ship From. Add a phone number, and set whether the address is residential or commercial.
Do the same on the Return To address.
Save.
Click Get Rates.
Pick the service you want from the list.
Click Buy Label.
Steps 5 through 7 need Manage Shipping. If those buttons aren't there for you, that's the handoff from section 3, so pass it to your 3PL.
9. Verification
The rate list shows services quoted from your pickup address, not from your warehouse. Wildly cheap rates are the tell that the address didn't take.
The printed label reads with your typed address as the sender and your warehouse as the delivery point.
The return moves to Label Generated, and the label is downloadable from the return.
When the goods arrive, the return is sitting there ready to receive against, so the stock books back in normally.
10. Constraints and caveats
Check the pickup address on the finished label. Some carrier accounts have an address registered with the carrier, and where that exists it overrides whatever you typed. The screen won't warn you. If the label comes back showing an address you didn't enter, that's the cause, so ask support which account to use instead.
Rates come from the carrier accounts your organization holds. No account with a given carrier means no rates from them, however much you'd like to use them. If you're on a 3PL's platform account, their rates flow to you and you don't need your own.
You must add at least one line item, and it has to be a product you already hold. There's no free-text line. For mixed or unknown goods, make a placeholder SKU with a realistic weight and use that.
Getting the address right is on you. There's no validation against the carrier before you buy, so a typo becomes a real collection attempt at the wrong building.
The destination is always one of your warehouses. This procedure can't produce a label between two outside addresses.
Edit addresses before shopping rates, not after. A rate already on screen was quoted against the old address, so change anything and shop again.
11. Worked example
A brand under a 3PL parent had stock sitting in a TikTok fulfillment centre and needed UPS labels to bring it home. They asked their 3PL to sort it, and the 3PL couldn't find anywhere to set the collection address.
Observation | Reading |
|---|---|
The Ship From field couldn't be edited on any order | Correct behaviour. Order collection points are always a warehouse. The editable one lives on a return order, per section 5. |
The brand held no UPS account of their own | Not a problem. The parent's platform UPS account covers them, and its rates appear automatically. |
The organization had no return reason codes | The blocker nobody sees coming. The return can't save until one exists, so that came first, per section 6. |
The brand contact could build the return but had no Buy Label button | A client role carrying View Shipping rather than Manage Shipping. Straight out of section 3, and the reason the request bounced between them in the first place. |
How it ended: the brand added a reason code and created the return with the TikTok address typed into Ship From and the parent's warehouse as the destination. The parent added phone numbers, shopped rates, and bought the UPS label. The same approach covers every marketplace pullback across the parent organization's brands.