Loop Returns

Loop Returns recognized that offering free exchanges and a credit on refunds will decrease your refund rate. They have a refund mitigation step called "Shop Now" which is working to "save the sale" by incentivizing the customer to buy other products from the store, thus not giving the full refund. Oftentimes they give a small $5 or $10 bonus for "Shopping Now" rather than getting the refund.

And, they work with Easypost to automatically create a return printing label so that your customer can easily send back the product.

Loop Returns is all about automated return management. Intercept, mitigate, surprise and delight, while increasing Lifetime Value and brand equity.

A return doesn't always mean a refund. Loop is aimed at reducing returns, increasing exchanges, and automating the process so that your team isn't bogged down with very repetitive ticket processing.

In the beginning, as a brand, you may want to simply refund a customer with store credit and let them make a new purchase. This is a clunky process that causes confusion, leading to churned customers. Instead, Loop Returns helps save the sale by making it easy to simply exchange products by creating a discount for the exchange of the replacement product(s) so that it comes in properly through your regular order process. This saves your customer support team valuable time. And Loop Returns will automatically check if items are returnable, past their return window, or marked as #final-sale (as a tag in Shopify or your eCommerce platform) to prevent non-returnable items from getting through.

Loop Returns "Shop Now" functionality, coming in before the completion of the refund is a very unique feature and critical to saving as many sales as possible.

"Instant Exchange" allows a consumer to buy products now, rather than waiting for the returned item to be received and processed. The consumer simply enters their credit card information, but is not charged, and the brand uses this for protection, in case the returned item is not properly shipped to the brand timely. Over 50% of customers choose Instant Exchange, getting their products much faster than waiting for the return to process. Over 95% of consumers successfully return the item within the 14 day timeframe.

They allow you to shop the brand website, using their own overlay, and then redirect you to their exchange portal at checkout. (In the future, this will be deprecated as Shopify opens up their checkout page for modification.)

Loop Returns sees average decreases in refunds of 20-25% and an average exchange rate of about 40%.

They are working to improve Lifetime Value and retention through their refund mitigation functionality and return management platform, and also generate additional upsell/cross-sell revenue by redirecting refunds to exchanges.

Typically the person investing in Loop Returns is the head of eCommerce, head of operations, or customer support team. For a small team, you're probably making the decision with your CEO and head of operations. For larger brands, you might bring in 3-4 people, maybe even including the CFO, someone from marketing, someone from the operations, and make a decision on the platform together.

You need to setup your return page and possibly adjust your return policy, including tagging products that are final sale, or adding return expiration dates to the products that may need them (like food, or seasonal products that should not be returnable after X days).

Mostly, once you are setup, you don't have to go into their backend and change all too much. Their platform is automating the return and exchange process with little to no intervention needed from your team.

Your head of warehouse operations, head of returns, or operations manager will need to process returns as they come in. If you are working with a 3PL, you can either give them access to Loop, have them API in (they have many 3PL integrations) so that they can process returns as they come in, or you can send them an Advanced Shipping Notice Report, and when they send back the returned items they have received, you (as the head of operations) can easily compare that to approve the appropriate orders.

Obviously the more returns you have, the more you need a return management platform. This tends to be fashion and apparel brands, beauty, home goods, and other types of companies that have some sort of "wrong size" or "broken product" problems quite often with their customers.

Right now Loop Returns only operates on Shopify/Shopify Plus.

When you start to see more than 1 return a day, it starts to become a headache, but you could still do it yourself, if you have the bandwidth. At a few returns a day, you really want to invest in the platform as it will save you time.