Recalls

A recall depends on whether your records can answer two questions: which units are affected, and who has them. With records kept at model level, the answer to the first is "all of them" and the answer to the second is a spreadsheet of every order for months. With identity at batch or item level, both are a search.

Affected units

A fault usually comes from somewhere specific: a production run, a material lot, a supplier, a factory, a date range. If the product is batch-managed, every unit carries its batch, and the recall can be limited to the batches made from the faulty lot. If the product is serialised, every unit has its own identifier, allocated against the purchase order, and the recall can be limited to the exact units, down to the carton they left in. Both are switches on the product record in the passport wizard, and the batch number is kept with the stock.

A recall by model warns everyone who ever bought it. A recall by identifier warns the people who have the faulty one.

The customers who received them

Each affected unit links to the order it shipped on, and the order holds the customer's name, address, email and phone. The Orders page and the Tracking page show whether each parcel was delivered, is still in transit, or is back in the warehouse, so the recall list splits into units with customers, units on the way and units on the shelf.

Units still in your hands

Units on the shelf are held where they are: an adjustment to unavailable, with the recall as the reason, takes them out of available stock across every store at once, so nothing affected is sold while the recall runs. Parcels still in transit can be intercepted with the carrier, where its service allows it, or received back as returns against the same identity.

Customer contact

The customer list is exact, so the message can be direct: the product, the unit, the steps to take, and a return label from the same order. For a serialised product, the passport the customer scans shows the item's own record, so a customer unsure whether their unit is affected can check the one in their hands.

Partner and marketplace sales

Units sold through a wholesale partner or a marketplace still carry their identity, and the record shows the order they left on: the partner's purchase order rather than a consumer's order. The recall then runs through the partner, who holds the end customers, with the exact list of units and batches they received.

The outcome record

Every affected unit ends the recall in a known state: returned, repaired, replaced, destroyed, or not recovered. Because the passport is attached to the unit rather than to the order, a repair is written to the item's record with the parts used, and a resale later carries that history with it. The record of each customer contacted, the date and the result is the one an authority will ask for.