CLIENT: Smerekova Moda🇺🇦Ukraine

Obmin - Returns, Exchanges and Refunds Portal for a Fashion Retailer Selling in Ukraine and the EU

Returns Platform for a Lviv Fashion Retailer

Designed and built a clickable returns platform for a Lviv online fashion retailer selling in Ukraine and the EU: every return from request to refund, faulty claims decided from photos before the customer ships, EU refund deadlines on every screen, and refunds held only for a named reason, with fiscal receipt status for Ukrainian refunds.

Scope of Work
Product design, UI build and clickable demo
Industry
E-commerce / Returns Portal
Enterprise
Compliance & Certifications
Ukraine Consumer Rights Protection LawEU Consumer Rights DirectiveEU Sale of Goods DirectiveGDPRUkraine Personal Data Protection LawPRRO fiscal receipts (Ukraine)EU Ecodesign Regulation (ESPR)

Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.

Impact

5 Screens
Clickable end to end

Dashboard, all returns in table and board views, return detail with 6 tabs, faulty-item reviews and refunds. Every one of the 31 demo returns opens its own detail page.

14 Days
EU refund deadline on every return

Counted from the customer's withdrawal notice and shown on the return, the returns list, the dashboard deadline watch and the refunds queue, with due-today and overdue flags.

4 Hold Reasons
No refund held without one

Loss-of-value deduction, open signal review, above the auto-refund limit or contents mismatch at receiving. Release respects each user's release limit, and a failed card refund can switch to bank transfer with an IBAN check.

31 Returns
Realistic demo data

16 customers in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Czechia, Lithuania and Italy, 10 styles, 19 refunds, 8 faulty claims, 5 exchanges and 9 return methods across 4 carriers and 2 stores.

The Problem

Smerekova Moda handled returns by email and phone. Agents checked each order in the shop admin, sent Nova Poshta return instructions by hand and logged cases in a spreadsheet. EU customers posted parcels to Lviv at their own cost and often disputed the card payment instead, parcels reached the warehouse with no paperwork, refunds went out in weekly batches that sometimes missed the EU 14-day deadline, and resellable items sat in returns bins for a month.

Our Solution

Obmin follows a return from request to refund, store credit or exchange. Staff see every return by stage with its market rules, decide faulty claims from photos before anything ships, and work a refunds queue where each EU deadline, hold reason and Ukrainian fiscal receipt is visible, with refund to the original payment method as the default.

The Challenge: Returns Across Two Rulebooks

A Ukrainian retailer selling into the EU runs two sets of consumer rules side by side, in two currencies, and the right answer for a return depends on where the customer lives, why the item came back and what has already happened to the parcel.

Two Markets, Two Return Windows

Ukrainian consumers can generally return unused goods with labels within 14 days, not counting the day of purchase. EU customers have a 14-day right of withdrawal from delivery, and the refund, including standard outbound delivery, is due within 14 days of their notice, to the same means of payment unless they agree otherwise.

Faulty Is Its Own Path

Faulty goods carry separate rights in Ukraine, and the EU legal guarantee generally runs for at least two years, apart from the withdrawal window. A faulty claim therefore has to be accepted outside the 14 days, and the customer should not pay to send back a faulty item.

Parcels, Grading and No Destruction

Returned parcels arrived with nothing to match them to a customer, and items waited weeks to be graded. The EU Ecodesign Regulation generally bans destroying unsold apparel, including withdrawal returns, for large companies from 19 July 2026, so every write-off needs a recorded reason and destination.

Fiscal Receipts and Fraud Signals

Refunds to Ukrainian customers generally need a fiscal return receipt through a registered cash register or PRRO. Serial-return and wardrobing signals are profiling under the GDPR, so no refund may be refused or account restricted by an automatic decision alone.

Our Approach: From Return Rules to a Clickable Portal

01

Spec and Rules Research

Mapped 12 user roles, from customer care and refunds officers to graders and trust analysts, and 40 screens: 30 staff screens, a store returns desk and 9 mobile-first customer portal screens. Defined the data model for returns, items, labels, grading, refunds, store credit, exchanges, dispositions and signals, and wrote down the rules the design follows: Ukrainian consumer and personal data law, the EU Consumer Rights and Sale of Goods Directives, the GDPR, PRRO fiscal receipts and the Ecodesign Regulation.

02

Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit

Built 5 key staff screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with KPIs, returns in flight by stage and the EU deadline watch, all returns with filters, board view and bulk actions, the return detail with refund breakdown and slide-over actions, faulty-item reviews with a photo panel, and the refunds queue with release, retry and bank transfer. A market switch filters every screen, and all actions run on local state.

03

What a Production Build Adds

Integration with the order management system or Shopify, Nova Poshta, Ukrposhta, Nova Post, InPost and DHL eCommerce labels and tracking, Sendcloud, LiqPay, WayForPay, Adyen or Stripe refunds, Checkbox PRRO receipts, Postmark email and TurboSMS for SMS and Viber. Plus the warehouse, trust, insights and settings screens, the customer portal and store desk, staff auth by role and an append-only audit log.

Why It Works: The Customer's Rights Built Into Every Step

Faulty Claims Decided Before Shipping

A specialist reviews the customer's photos next to the catalogue image and other faulty claims on the same style in the last 90 days, then accepts (optionally letting the customer keep the item), asks for more photos or declines with a reason. Repeat faults can flag the style for a quality check.

Refund to Original Payment by Default

Store credit, with the retailer's optional 10% bonus, is only a choice. Converting a refund to credit needs the customer's recorded agreement, so a withdrawal refund is never switched without it.

Deadlines Where the Work Happens

Each EU refund shows its due date and days left on the return header, in the returns list and in the refunds queue, and the dashboard lists the ones due or overdue. Ukrainian refunds show their fiscal receipt status in the same column.

Holds Name Their Reason, People Release Them

A held refund carries a chip saying why, and a person releases it within their limit, with or without a deduction. Bulk cancel only touches returns with no carrier scan, and a declined faulty claim tells the customer which rights still apply.

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