Send Return Labels on WhatsApp with AfterShip Shipping

Yes. AeroChat works directly with AfterShip Shipping. It checks the order against your returns policy, creates a return label on your carrier account through the AfterShip Shipping API and sends the label link in the chat.

This recipe turns “can I send it back?” into a printed return label, in the same conversation, within the rules you set. Part of connecting AfterShip Shipping to WhatsApp and AI chat.

What happens today

A customer wants to return an item. They message you, wait for someone to check the order and the policy, then wait again while your team makes a label in AfterShip Shipping and emails it. Every return costs your team a few minutes and the customer a day or two.

The flow that works

The customer asks to return an item in chat.
AeroChat finds the order in Shopify and checks it against your returns window and rules.
It creates a return label in AfterShip Shipping on the carrier account and service you chose.
It sends the label link with packing and drop-off steps, and offers a pickup where the carrier supports it.

What it looks like on WhatsApp

Customer: Hi, the Larch wool sweater is too small. How do I return it? Order #5281 (example)

AeroChat: Sorry it doesn’t fit. Order #5281 was delivered on 3 November, so it is within our 30-day returns window. Here is your prepaid USPS return label. Print it, tape it to the parcel and drop it at any post office.

Customer: Thanks, done.

In AfterShip Shipping: a new return label for order #5281 on your USPS account, from the customer’s address to your returns address, with its tracking number.

The recipe

Copy this into AeroChat

When a customer asks to return an item, follow these steps.

Ask for the order number and the email on the order. Find the order in Shopify.

Check the order is within our returns window and the item can be returned, using the policy in the knowledge base.

Ask which item they are returning and why.

Create a return label in AfterShip Shipping from the customer’s shipping address to our returns address, with USPS Ground Advantage (example) and the order number as the reference.

Send the label link and tell them how to pack the item and where to drop it off.

If the carrier is FedEx, UPS, DHL Express or Purolator, offer to book a pickup instead.

If the item cannot be returned under our policy, explain the rule in one line and hand the conversation to our team.

Never create a second label for the same item. Never change the carrier or service. Reply in the customer’s language.

Change the carrier, service and returns address to match your store before you paste it.

What to connect

Your Shopify store. Built in. Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store and connect your store in the dashboard, so AeroChat can check the order, the delivery date and the items.
AfterShip Shipping. In your AfterShip Shipping admin, go to Settings and click API Keys to generate a key. Paste it in when AeroChat asks. The labels and rates API is listed on the Pro plan and above (as of November 2026).
Your knowledge base. Add your returns policy, with the returns window and the items that cannot be returned, so AeroChat applies your rules.

After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect AfterShip Shipping, add your knowledge base if the recipe uses one, then switch it on. If it built the connection from AfterShip Shipping’s public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.

Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.

Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.

What you still decide

Your returns window and which items can come back.
Which carrier and service AeroChat uses for return labels, and so what each one costs you.
When AeroChat passes a return to your team instead of making a label.

The result to expect

Customers get a return label in a minute, in the chat they bought in. Your team stops making labels by hand for returns that follow your policy.

Measure it with your own numbers: return requests handled in chat without your team, and the time from request to label, for a month before and after.

Next: see every AfterShip Shipping workflow, including booking a courier pickup and canceling unused labels.

Works on every chat channel

This workflow runs the same way on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, the chat on your store and email, with the same AfterShip Shipping connection behind it. See what each channel does on the AfterShip Shipping integration page.

Questions

Does AeroChat approve returns?

It follows the rules you write in the recipe and your knowledge base. Anything outside them, such as an item past the returns window, goes to your team with the order attached.

Who pays for the return label?

Your own carrier account in AfterShip Shipping pays, like any label your team creates. AeroChat never bills shipping.

Send your first return label in chat

Install AeroChat, paste the recipe, add your AfterShip Shipping key, and test a return from your own chat.

Install AeroChat on Shopify

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