Which Returns Management Solution is Best for Your Brand?

As an online retailer, you know that returns are a part of your business.  

E-commerce return rates typically hover between 15% and 30%, and as many as 40% of your shoppers have returned at least one product by their third purchase.  

Returns impact your profits, your operations, and your shoppers. The challenges are too prominent to ignore.  

Many retailers are turning to return management software to ease the burden. But no solution is perfect, and none addresses every issue.  

So how can you evaluate and compare return management solutions?  

We assembled the fundamental components of return management to help you examine your options and make the best decision for your business and your shoppers.  

Main Components of Return Management

From our experience, there are three fundamental elements of return management:

To be truly effective, a return management solution must address each in some capacity.  

Customer Experience

At the core of return management is a simple truth: returns impact the customer experience.  

As a D2C brand, you strive to create a great experience at all stages of the customer journey. Returns are no exception.  

Many retailers quickly find that a manual return process can’t keep up, especially in the customer experience.  

Customer service representatives become consumed by emails and support tickets. For one retailer we partner with, an estimated 60% to 70% of emails regarded returns before using ReturnLogic.  

That same team states that emails about returns are now virtually nonexistent.  

This element of return management is centered around empowering shoppers to start a return without assistance from the retailer, and removing friction from the return process.  

Customer centricity doesn’t end at the time of purchase.  

Remember that 30% to 40% of your shoppers will return a product at some point. A better return experience means happier shoppers.  

Operational Efficiency

Effective operations are the groundwork of the customer experience. Shoppers want their refund, exchange, or store credit fast.  

One retailer was able to reduce the time to process a return by 10x since partnering with ReturnLogic.   

Operational efficiency starts with visibility and communication between teams. Intelligently crafted automation enables retailers to expedite their processes.  

But it’s not enough to process returns quickly; your systems need to be compatible. Inventory management and return management go hand-in-hand.  

Advanced reports provide insights to help retailers continue to improve their operations. You can identify bottlenecks that are impeding your process and allocate resources to alleviate these obstructions.  

Returns Optimization

Returns Optimization is a process of continuous improvement that leverages return data to create value for merchants and shoppers.  

It allows you to reduce your return rate, drive exchanges over refunds, and better understand the needs and preferences of your shoppers.  

One brand was able to cut its return rate by 9% and reduce multi-size purchases by 15% after using the ReturnLogic platform.  

Just like purchases, returns inform customer lifetime value. You can implement more precise customer segmentation by considering what shoppers bought and what they returned.  

Without return data, you can’t see the complete picture of e-commerce. 

Deciding the Best Return Management Solutions

The fundamental components of return management are Customer Experience, Operational Efficiency, and Returns Optimization.  

No one solution will work for everyone. But these three elements provide a lens through which you can examine return management software.