Reverse logistics and returns processing in Canada: recover the most from what comes back.

Returns reach the Markham, Ontario depot from anywhere in Canada, as bulk pallet shipments or as individual units. Each one is checked against your manifest or RMA records, and every serial number enters the system individually, visible in the customer portal from the first scan. The reported reason for return travels with the unit, so the technician testing it knows what your customer said was wrong.

RMAs and orders can be entered in the portal, or submitted from your own systems through our REST API, so nobody on your team retypes a return into a second system. From that first scan the unit has a record, and every later step, from test result to final disposition, is added to the same serial. That record is what makes per-unit reporting possible at the end of the line.

Every return stream mixes real failures with units that work fine: returned for buyer’s remorse, a setup problem, or a misdiagnosis. Treat them all as broken and working units eat repair labour they never needed while real failures wait in the same queue. Screening sorts the stream first.

Each unit is functionally tested against criteria defined with you per program and per product: power, functions, ports, displays, connectivity. A pass means what you say it means. Units with no fault found go back to sellable stock or restock. Confirmed failures are documented with symptoms and test results, then routed by your rules. Every unit also gets a cosmetic and functional grade against your grading scale, and that grade drives the refurbish-versus-resell decision downstream. More on how the sort works on the screening and testing page.

Every unit that clears triage takes one of five routes: restock as-is, refurbish, repair, harvest for parts, or recycle. You decide which, and you manage the rules yourself in the customer portal, not through an account manager.

That matters because the right answer moves. Memory prices and tariffs change what refurbished units sell for, what repairs cost, and what harvested parts are worth. A rule that was right last quarter can be wrong today, and a rule locked in a statement of work keeps routing units the old way until the amendment lands. Here:

• Criteria set by model or by category, such as a repair ceiling or which paths a model may take.
• Changes go live immediately: the next unit at triage follows the new rule.
• An AI-assisted disposition recommendation on every unit, with your team making the final call, case by case.
• Every decision recorded by serial, so you can see whether a rule change paid off.

A sort-only returns line tests, grades, and passes along whatever powers on. Anything with a real fault gets scrapped or dropped into a lower grade. Here, units that fail screening flow into the same repair operation that handles our warranty programs, and that bench works down to the component.

That means board-level and BGA repair: fault isolation to the failing component, SMD rework and microsoldering under magnification, and BGA reballing and replacement. You set the repair-versus-scrap threshold, so repairs happen only where they’re economic. Repaired units move into refurbishment: cosmetic restoration, data sanitization where the device stores data, AI-assisted grading against your grade definitions, and repackaging or kitting for the channel. The result is more units recovered per pallet and fewer written off.

Recovered stock only returns money if it has somewhere to sell that doesn’t hurt your new-product business. Units you route to resale sell through Skadi Electronics, Microland’s partner channel: a Canada-only, refurbished-only direct-to-consumer store that sells nothing new.

Your refurbished product never sits beside its brand-new twin at a discount, and Canadian returns stay in the Canadian market instead of leaking into other regions’ pricing. Every unit is graded and warrantied at Microland before it lists, price floors are set with the brand, and every serial is tracked from return intake to final sale. You decide what’s eligible. For the evidence on cannibalization and the controls that keep the tiers apart, read how to sell refurbished without cannibalizing new sales.

Electronics lose value on a calendar. A returned unit that waits for triage, repair, or listing is worth less when it finally sells, and it ties up working capital the whole time. The number worth tracking is the days from customer return to revenue recovery: from the moment a unit leaves your customer’s hands to the moment it earns money again, through resale, redeployment as service stock, or parts.

Processing in-country shortens it. Returns consolidate to the Markham depot from across Canada, so the return leg has no cross-border freight, customs brokerage, or duties, and none of the transit days that come with them. Screening, repair, refurbishment, and resale run under one roof, so there are no handoffs between vendors. We make the case for this metric in the reverse logistics KPI brands are still ignoring.

US OEMs, distributors, and retailers selling into Canada usually find the problem after their first returns season. Canadian returns routed to a US depot cross the border on the way south, and again if anything is resold or redeployed back into Canada, and every crossing adds freight, brokerage, transit days, and, since the 2025 tariff rounds, exposure to duties on movements that used to be routine. A reverse logistics provider in Canada closes that loop. Returns from every province consolidate to the Markham, Ontario depot, get screened, repaired, refurbished, resold, or recycled here, and never leave the country: no re-export leg, no brokerage on the return, no duties.

That is the arrangement most US brands are looking for when they compare reverse logistics companies in Canada: one Canadian receiving point for RMAs and retailer returns, disposition rules they control from their own desk, a Canada-only refurbished resale channel that keeps recovered units out of their US pricing, and per-serial reporting through the portal or the REST API so the Canadian program feeds the same systems as the US one. Programs onboard with a manifest and a rule set, not a facility build-out, and the transition playbook covers moving an existing program north without a coverage gap.

Every serial carries its full history: intake, test outcome, grade, routing, and final disposition. It’s available in the customer portal and through our REST API, so it can feed your own returns systems instead of living in a spreadsheet. Screening outcomes roll up into per-program reporting on failure rates, no-fault-found rates, and grade distribution: the data that tells you what your return stream is actually made of.

Devices that arrive holding user data are flagged at screening and routed for data sanitization following NIST SP 800-88 guidelines before any resale path, with per-unit records in your reporting. Whatever can’t be economically recovered goes to secure destruction and responsible recycling, with chain-of-custody documentation, so the tail end of your return stream runs in the same pipeline as the front end. See IT asset disposition for how that tail is handled.