What’s the Best Way to Handle Laptop Returns from Remote Employees?

Honestly, using your own shipping department might be the best move. Usually, you can just send out an empty box with a prepaid label. I doubt any of these services could beat that for cost. Plus, if you’re already shipping regularly, it should be pretty easy to manage.

For our company, we just use FedEx. Employees fill out a form online, receiving a QR code that allows them to package and send their laptop back conveniently. Plus, we get a great discount with our shipping volume!

It's interesting how these retrieval services exist. For us, we just sent an empty box and return label directly. If someone doesn’t send it back, it becomes an HR issue. A good idea is to use something like Absolute to lock down the laptops if someone is terminated; it makes them useless if not returned.

Just to give you my perspective; I work for LaptopReturn.com, a competitor in this area. When considering a vendor, think about what you really need. If retrieval is your only concern, using a dedicated service is often more cost-effective than those all-in-one platforms that bundle other services you may not need. Our retrieval service is typically quick and focused just on getting devices back. We have a high recovery rate too!

I have used FedEx’s return services, and it works well. You can provide a QR code or label for the employee to use, and they can drop it off at any store. If you already use FedEx for shipping, it might be worth checking their services.

I prefer ReReady for retrieval kits. They use USPS to ship the empty box and UPS for the return with a required signature and declared value. It's $115 per laptop, but the convenience is worth it for us!

I’d also throw Readycloud into the mix. They use UPS for returns, and their pricing worked perfectly for our needs, especially when we had no other options.