Latest / The Retail Podcast / How Retailers Can Win the Battle Against Returns with ReturnPro CEO Sender Shamiss

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How Retailers Can Win the Battle Against Returns with ReturnPro CEO Sender Shamiss · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  You don't want to see your product being sold in in
• 0:03
  countries where the return rate in in the United States is
• 0:07
  bigger than the entire reset, than the entire forward sales.
• 0:11
  If you take that product and export it into smaller markets,
• 0:14
  the returns volume could be bigger than your forward volume
• 0:17
  and it could truly disrupt that, Brad.
• 0:30
  Hello and welcome back to the retail podcast.
• 0:33
  I'm joined by sender Seamus, the CEO and Co founder of Return
• 0:37
  Pro, And I think we're going to, we're in for an interesting
• 0:40
  conversation with an executive from the, the, the one of the
• 0:44
  biggest headaches in retail that may be getting worse, given the
• 0:49
  what, what's been going on on a global scale from tariffs and
• 0:52
  everything else and how you manage that.
• 0:55
  But Sender I, I mean, obviously you, you, you, you built this
• 0:59
  business from the ground up and over 1718 years, how come you
• 1:04
  went for a name change? What?
• 1:06
  What was behind the name change? So really I think it was just a
• 1:10
  directed kind of targeted audience that we were going
• 1:13
  after. We we started the business
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  strictly in the logistics world and then over time I come from
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  the software world. So over time we kind of delved
• 1:22
  into software and then ultimately into re commerce and
• 1:25
  the Recon group was supposed to be or eventually TRG and then
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  ultimately go TRG, supposed to be a combination of companies
• 1:32
  that help solve returns. And overtime we went through all
• 1:34
  these crazy mission statements and, and overtime we finally got
• 1:39
  to solving returns. I know that sounds super simple,
• 1:42
  but it took 16 years to get into those two simple words, solving
• 1:45
  returns. It took the same 16 years to
• 1:48
  calling it return pro. We are a collection of return
• 1:51
  pros. That's what we are.
• 1:53
  So I think it's, it's very fitting to to name ourselves
• 1:57
  return pro. We very much focus on returns
• 1:59
  and that's kind of the key initiative.
• 2:00
  How do we bring this product back to life?
• 2:02
  How do we reduce the returns? How do we go through all that?
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  And that's the main reason and focus behind the the name
• 2:08
  change. And I think it galvanises the
• 2:10
  team, gives them a very clear path to what it is that they're
• 2:13
  supposed to achieve and and gives a very strong
• 2:16
  communication to our client base, customers and the industry
• 2:19
  as all who we are and what we do.
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  Now you guys went quite big NRF, we were just talking off camera
• 2:26
  about your sponsorship of obviously the stage.
• 2:29
  I I saw your stuff in the press room and I'm conscious of the
• 2:32
  fact that you must have met a lot of executives while you were
• 2:36
  at NRF. One of the main questions I
• 2:39
  asked what's top of mind for for the executives that you're
• 2:43
  meeting within the industry or in a broader sense, what's
• 2:46
  what's been top of mind the people you've been meeting?
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  So first of all, we, we sponsor pretty much every year.
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  You know, there's different levels of sponsorship.
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  We sponsor within, within our financial abilities, so to
• 2:57
  speak. And I mean it's very important
• 3:00
  to get it out there. Over the years we've been going
• 3:03
  as you know, TRG go TRG for the last, I don't know, six years or
• 3:06
  so and we go to multiple trade shows.
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  I think belonging to then RF is extremely important.
• 3:12
  It's the largest body for for retail within the United States.
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  And I think as we speak to retailers over the last decade,
• 3:21
  we find that a lot of the executives just didn't know what
• 3:24
  returns were all about. And you'd think that, you know,
• 3:27
  at a large enterprise retailer, they'd understand what returns
• 3:30
  are all about and kind of get into the degree of it.
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  But it was kind of, you know, the black sheep of the family.
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  It was in the corner somewhere in a warehouse or people never
• 3:39
  talked about it. They front loaded the cost into
• 3:41
  the cost of the product itself, whether on the front end when
• 3:44
  the purchase agreement was made between the retailer and the
• 3:46
  vendor or on the back end. And the back end happens a lot
• 3:50
  as well on the on the back end, they front loaded as as well
• 3:53
  into the actual cost directly to the consumer.
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  And for for retailers lately with, you know, the looming
• 3:59
  political climate, whether it's tariffs or or inflation, they
• 4:03
  really needed to kind of find other avenues to prop up their
• 4:07
  net margins. And the beauty of of retail is
• 4:10
  and returns the themselves is that the more you save on
• 4:14
  return, the more of that product you bring back to life.
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  Every single penny of that goes back to your Net margin and
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  that's the cool part of it. So if, if returns represent and
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  I think I think we'll get down to this path, sorry to jump
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  ahead, but returns are about 890 billion in 2024.
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  That's the in around number. the US sales are around, let's call
• 4:34
  it 8 point something trillion and out of that maybe 5.2 or so
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  are consumable returns that are not food.
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  So you've got you are a return rate of like, let's say 16 plus
• 4:43
  percent. That's a massive number.
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  Most businesses don't have a 16% margin.
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  So you're talking, you're talking every basis point that
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  you recover goes back straight to Net margin.
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  And that's the beauty of it. And these executives are
• 4:56
  starting to understand that. And to your point, we're
• 4:58
  starting to have that conversation with the jicular.
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  We used to have it at the manager level, director level,
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  senior director, maybe junior VP.
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  Now we're starting to talk to C staff about it because they're
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  very interested. And that's the cool part.
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  People are finally starting to listen it.
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  It took a short 17 years. Yeah, Well, I mean, look, I've,
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  I've having worked with a lot of executives just before the
• 5:19
  inflation problem that kicked in and the cost of living crisis.
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  It was, you know, how am I going to find another 25%?
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  How am I going to find 15%? Because I'm not going to grow 15
• 5:29
  or 25% in my business. Inflation is eating my margin.
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  How, how am I going to do this? And so therefore, I, I expect a
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  lot of leaders will be thinking about as these because next it's
• 5:40
  Europe, next, you know, it's just going to keep trickling
• 5:43
  around the world and we'll see. And so I can imagine retailers
• 5:46
  are looking at what are the trends.
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  I mean, you mentioned 890 billion during the holiday
• 5:51
  season, right? That was the.
• 5:53
  No, no, that's the annual number.
• 5:55
  That's oh, OK. That's the annual number.
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  What do you, what do you know? So what do you noticing in the
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  sense of trends then in terms of is everyone just ordering 3 of
• 6:04
  everything or why are we? Why is it such a problem?
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  I think you know as as you watch e-commerce grow, obviously as a
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  society, whether it's in the United States, Europe or anyone
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  developed world, we are gravitating towards more and
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  more online shopping. A big part of online shopping is
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  obviously clothing and apparel. And we all know the clothing and
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  apparel has problems, especially when people are bracketing.
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  And bracketing is the practise of buying two or three of the of
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  the same product in different sizes and hoping one fits and
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  returning the rest. That's terrible exercise and
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  there's a lot of technology that we can put into in place to fix
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  that. And but reality to answer your
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  question directly is that as long as e-commerce sales
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  continue to grow and become a bigger factor and either way at
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  brick and mortar sales, that number is going to keep growing.
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  And I think that there's a lot of things we can do on the front
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  end and solving returns a big part of the issue and the way we
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  view it. And I think we'll kind of just
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  dive right into it and it doesn't matter.
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  We say this internally all the time.
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  What's it doesn't matter if we have the solution or not.
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  As a business, you have to think of the vision that solves the
• 7:09
  problem for your customer and work towards that.
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  So you're the innovator. Your job is to innovate.
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  Your job is not to say how can I make another dollar?
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  And within that innovation you can find your space.
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  How are you going to profit from that?
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  So when you look at it, you need to speak to these retailers,
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  vendors, brands, whatever you want to call them all throughout
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  the supply chain and ask what is your issue with returns.
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  And most of them depending on the category though.
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  And then we, we, we basically a service 259 categories, which is
• 7:37
  a massive number. And we do everything from
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  apparel to consumer electronics and furniture and HomeGoods and
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  power tools and hand tools. And there's a whole slew of
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  product. Every single return rate is
• 7:48
  different depending on the category that you're servicing.
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  Of course, the largest is always going to be apparel.
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  But there are things that you need to do on the front end to
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  say, OK, how do I stop this? How do I mitigate this?
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  Because the most important thing you can do as a business when
• 8:03
  you're offering the service, get a front of the consumer and find
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  out how you can reduce that return and not by saying, let me
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  offer you an exchange after the return occurred.
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  How do I stop the return from occurring in the 1st place?
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  What technology do I have to give you?
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  What information do I have to give you better sizing?
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  You have to create widgets for sizing across platforms.
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  You have to see Bloomingdale's and Macy's and and see that the
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  size of a Levi five O 1, you know 30 by 32 is the same as a
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  Wrangler, you know, X with a 30 by 30.
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  Is that the same? How do you create that
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  technology? How do you get it adopted across
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  brands? How do you get it adopted across
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  retail platforms? There's a lot of this type of
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  preconceived tech that lowers the return rate that the
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  retailers are very interested in.
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  And of course, no matter what, we live in a consumer society
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  and whether it's Europe or the United States, we love the
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  consumer. We're not stopping any time
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  soon, tariffs or no tariffs. And I think that no matter what,
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  you're going to have to deal with the physical return.
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  And that's also an important part of it.
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  Teaching them that walking through that is is kind of a
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  mission, right? Shrink is a is a big problem in
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  retail and so you know, return fraud and and how you prevent
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  that. Maybe we we should unpack what
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  for those who don't know what your business actually does,
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  what it does, but I'm curious how it lends itself then to
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  protect retailers from return fraud.
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  So I think let's start with the pre purchase.
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  The idea is there's three facets to return, right?
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  The first is the pre purchase. What happens before?
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  What leads to that return in the 1st place?
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  Why did you return an item? Well, a part of it is what we
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  just talked about, sizing wrong templates, just bad information
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  that wasn't the customers. The customer can make a better
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  decision, a more informed decision as to what they want to
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  buy and they end up buying multiple items.
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  The second is fraud and there's two types of fraud.
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  There's organised fraud and there's something called
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  wardrobing. Wardrobing, we all know, some of
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  us have done it. Some of us watch our friends do
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  it and they, you know, you'll buy a cocktail dress, go out and
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  then you'll return that cocktail dress and and that's fraud.
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  I know a lot of people think, oh, it's not, I'm doing nothing
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  harmful. Well, you're doing something
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  very, you bought a product under the pretence of keeping that
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  item. You had no concept, no, no
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  intention of keeping it. And ultimately you return that
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  item. Now that retailer or that brand
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  has to deal with that product, whether they have to sanitise
• 10:27
  it, bring it back to life, maybe it's damaged, whatever.
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  It costs a lot of money, the shipping cost, handling cost,
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  all that. So that's something that we have
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  to deal with. And the way we deal with that as
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  a business is we create these trusted customer algorithms that
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  those are very, very important. And we work with other
• 10:43
  businesses to establish different customers across
• 10:45
  platforms. And then the pre purchase piece,
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  I talked to you about that we make sure sizing is right and
• 10:50
  things of that nature. And there aren't a lot of
• 10:52
  players in the pre purchase. Most of the players actually
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  exist in the post purchase. So to me, returns are three
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  things, pre post and the physical handling of the goods.
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  So the post are a lot of the businesses out there that you
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  see that created the return portals because they're easy, A
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  lot of the investment communities just dumping money
• 11:09
  into the into these portals. And there's probably 200 of
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  these portal companies. The problem that I see with the
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  portal company and the reason why we don't follow that
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  business model we haven't for 17 years is that the portal
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  community simply wants to give you a piece of software as a
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  brand, as a retailer. That doesn't help.
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  You need a solution of how to handle that product.
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  First you need preventative measures, which is software and
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  and physical. And then you need the ability,
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  if the return does occur, to create that portal, to have that
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  technology. The returns regions, the
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  exchanges, the trusted customers, the keypad
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  algorithms, all those things are important.
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  But then what happens when the physical item gets returned,
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  $200 billion of the $900 billion is spent.
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  So on 900 billion or approximately 900 billion of
• 11:52
  returns, 200 billion is spent on supply chain dollars when the
• 11:55
  recovery as a whole is about 133 billion.
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  So they're underwater, that 66 billion, meaning that if you
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  took the returns and put them in the garbage, you would be
• 12:04
  financially better off. Of course, that's not an
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  alternative. It's not good for the
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  environment, it's not good for the retail, it's not good for
• 12:10
  anybody. But the money is really going to
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  these transport companies, right?
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  The FedEx is the DHL is the UPS because they're moving the
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  product from place to place. So solving returns, solve the
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  pre, avoid the return if you can't take the return, create
• 12:24
  the technology, but then physically handle the product to
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  bring the product back to life. That's such an important part of
• 12:30
  the journey. And I get passionate about it,
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  you know, because it's what we do.
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  And I love this piece and explaining it to people like,
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  oh, doesn't the product just go automatically back on the shelf?
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  Sure, for things like clothing, about 90% of it can go back on
• 12:43
  the shelf, but it still needs to go to the supply chain and touch
• 12:46
  by person. But for some categories that
• 12:47
  have privacy issues, like data privacy, like electronics, less
• 12:51
  than 4% go back on the shelf. That's a mind boggling number.
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  That means 96% has to be touched by humans before they're
• 12:58
  allergies. Where are you going to touch
• 12:59
  them? A $20 Roku Stick is not worth
• 13:02
  touching in the United States. You have to plug it in, you have
• 13:04
  to data wipe it, you have to test it.
• 13:06
  These are very expensive things. So you have to have those
• 13:08
  economies of scale on top of that supply chain industry.
• 13:12
  We have 11 facilities in, in, in 8 facilities in the United
• 13:15
  States, two in Canada, 2 in Mexico, one in Southeast Asia,
• 13:19
  just to bring that back and forth.
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  We're a small company, Yeah, you know, it's like 3.7 million
• 13:24
  square feet. Just working on the
• 13:26
  functionality of bringing the product back to life.
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  So we're not just a software company, we're not just
• 13:31
  technology company, we're not just a re commerce company.
• 13:34
  We are all those things because our goal is for you as a
• 13:38
  retailer, as a brand, to take that product and put it back on
• 13:40
  your marketplace. No, that's OK.
• 13:43
  You mentioned 2 important points that I just want you to sort of
• 13:47
  take us through. One of them is your trusted
• 13:49
  customer algorithm and how you know, low cost items, you may,
• 13:54
  because you trust them, there's a trust element in there.
• 13:58
  And so therefore, you know, keep, keep the product if it's,
• 14:00
  it's, if it's meet certain metrics.
• 14:03
  And then how are you reducing products from going to landfill
• 14:06
  like the Roku example? I'm just thinking, does the
• 14:09
  model say, well, don't touch it, just throw it away?
• 14:12
  So I'm just curious, how are you specifically help in those
• 14:14
  areas? So it starts with really good
• 14:17
  tech. I think trusted customer
• 14:19
  algorithms, the bigger the retailer, the less they're going
• 14:21
  to let us handle it. I think the larger enterprise
• 14:23
  retailers, we work with them a lot and we help them provide
• 14:28
  information about their trusted customer algorithm for
• 14:30
  themselves, but they have their own and our job within the
• 14:34
  supply chains to feed that data back customer X particles
• 14:37
  received. It wasn't as described, it
• 14:40
  wasn't the right product. Don't trust the customers more.
• 14:42
  Ding their, their, their lifetime value by X amount of
• 14:45
  dollars and make sure that that LTV ends up being, you know,
• 14:50
  decremented by X amount. And if it's below a certain
• 14:53
  threshold, then don't trust the customer anymore.
• 14:55
  And that's kind of how most of the algos work for the small,
• 14:59
  for the smaller and medium sized businesses, we of course provide
• 15:02
  that for them. The second part, which is just
• 15:05
  as important, which is that example of a Roku stick or
• 15:08
  something as simple as a Stanley mug.
• 15:09
  You know, Stanley mug doesn't have a lot of proprietary
• 15:11
  technology. It's a brand, it's something
• 15:13
  very cool. It's a piece of stainless steel
• 15:15
  and it's fairly easy to to to run a very rigorous supply chain
• 15:20
  operation on it, make sure it's sanitised and put it back into
• 15:23
  the marketplace. But where would you do that?
• 15:25
  It's a 1520 thirty dollar item. You're not going to do that in
• 15:28
  the United States at an average labour cost of $2223 loaded.
• 15:33
  You're going to go into a a market where that that economy
• 15:37
  of scale makes sense. So maybe you're going to go to
• 15:39
  Mexico if it's a less expensive item with less technology, Maybe
• 15:44
  you're going to go to Southeast Asia where you're going to put
• 15:46
  some more work into it and bring it back like maybe into Canada.
• 15:50
  And that's why we have these facilities and dots because that
• 15:53
  technology is important. That algo that we have reads
• 15:55
  that information. It uses some basic machine
• 15:58
  learning. There's a bunch of agents that
• 16:00
  we have that are built across that from categories to price to
• 16:03
  customer sentiment to all that, that work and understand what
• 16:07
  the value of the item is going to be at the end.
• 16:09
  Because we run our own supply chain, we know that what the ERP
• 16:12
  costs or what the management cost of touching that product is
• 16:15
  going to be throughout the life cycle of the item.
• 16:17
  And we put all that data together and say, OK, hot dog,
• 16:19
  no hot dog. You know, at the end of the day,
• 16:21
  that's where it ends up and it it it sends it to the right
• 16:25
  channel. Our goal is to make sure nothing
• 16:28
  ends up in the liquidation pallet, nothing ends up in
• 16:31
  landfill. We want to bring that product
• 16:32
  back to life and give it to the original Brett.
• 16:35
  But sometimes these brands don't have that technology.
• 16:38
  They can't even take refurb or secondary market products onto
• 16:41
  the marketplace. So we start off by helping them
• 16:43
  sell it on other marketplace and ultimately over over the years
• 16:47
  we work with them to create their own secondary market
• 16:50
  platform right on their websites and they we can resell that
• 16:53
  product within their environment, attract that
• 16:55
  secondary market customer. And it also gives something very
• 16:58
  important which you didn't mention.
• 16:59
  And I think we'll get to there's a huge brand protection element.
• 17:03
  You don't want to see your product being sold in in
• 17:07
  countries where the return rate in the in the United States is
• 17:11
  bigger than the entire reset and then the entire forward sales of
• 17:15
  that product. Then you can take, you know,
• 17:16
  computers like Lenovo, HP, Dell, or even simpler stuff like TTI
• 17:21
  that has Milwaukee brand and, and other brands that are Black
• 17:24
  and Decker and things of that nature.
• 17:26
  If you take that product and export into smaller markets, the
• 17:30
  returns volume could be bigger than your forward volume and it
• 17:33
  could truly disrupt that brand. So we work with those brands to
• 17:36
  make sure that you're not your product doesn't end up in those
• 17:39
  in those those places. One of the things that we used
• 17:42
  to anecdotally say, which it sounds like there's data behind
• 17:46
  it, is the fact that your returns policy is now going to
• 17:50
  dictate your sales ability because customers actually care
• 17:55
  about the returns policy and they make their decisions on it.
• 17:58
  And your research showed that 77% of shoppers factored that
• 18:04
  in. I'm just curious what like the
• 18:06
  one or two things that you find that consumers or shoppers are
• 18:10
  looking for from a returns policies that retailers really
• 18:13
  need to pay attention to? I think there's a trend out
• 18:16
  there right now with returns insurance which they charge a
• 18:19
  customer or maybe the brand pays for it upfront to ensure the
• 18:23
  package on the way back they basically ensuring the shipping
• 18:26
  of the item back. I think ultimately over time the
• 18:29
  consumers going to speak and consumer wants ease ability of
• 18:32
  purchase. They don't want they want very
• 18:34
  transparent return policies. They don't want to know that
• 18:37
  they didn't pay for some insurance and now they have to
• 18:40
  pay for shipping. They don't mind being directed
• 18:42
  to drop off locations. They also don't want to walk
• 18:45
  into supply chain drop off locations.
• 18:47
  So what they're looking for is a better shopping experience.
• 18:50
  So if I bought my item online, you know, at a Walmart, I want
• 18:55
  to come back to a Walmart to return it or maybe another
• 18:58
  retail where I'm going to enjoy spending that money again.
• 19:00
  And that's OK. If you charge me for an H&M item
• 19:03
  and you say if, if, if I'm not going to walk into an H&M store
• 19:07
  and return it at an H&M store, maybe I'm going to get charged
• 19:10
  $2.75 for shipping it. That's fair.
• 19:13
  But if you're strictly a.com reseller, I suggest that brands
• 19:17
  don't do that. That's a very bad idea.
• 19:19
  And that's a very bad idea because they're going to
• 19:21
  alienate their customer. The customer is not going to
• 19:23
  want to pay those fees. And I think over time the model
• 19:26
  is going to prove itself out. You know, convenience always
• 19:28
  right from from Sam Walton to Jeff Bezos, customers always
• 19:31
  right the light and excite the customer.
• 19:33
  That's the single most important thing.
• 19:35
  And that's our goal. Although our customers, the
• 19:37
  retailer and the brand and the vendor, we make sure that we
• 19:40
  follow that ethos that they have, which is really, really
• 19:43
  delighting those customers. I got your final question.
• 19:47
  When you look to the future, given everything that's going
• 19:49
  on, how do you see this world evolving?
• 19:52
  I think that returns are the most complex part of the
• 19:55
  ecosystem. I think what you find is the
• 19:57
  retailers avoid it and it's kind of like the black sheep as I
• 20:00
  described at the beginning of our conversation, because it's
• 20:03
  so complex. Normal enterprise retailers are
• 20:06
  departmentalized, right? There's a supply chain
• 20:08
  department, transportation department, there's a retail
• 20:10
  department, branding department, merchandising department, and
• 20:12
  all these departments don't really communicate so well
• 20:15
  amongst themselves and returns, unfortunately, it touches every
• 20:19
  facet of it, right? Even the way merchandiser
• 20:22
  negotiate. With the brand is important
• 20:24
  because that return policy is set right then and there.
• 20:27
  So I think the first and foremost in the future as the
• 20:31
  enterprise retailers and the executive staff really start
• 20:35
  understanding the impact of returns and they want those
• 20:38
  dollars or percentage points back on their Net margin,
• 20:40
  they're going to start to tie that thread together.
• 20:43
  Maybe they'll have a chief returns officer, maybe they'll
• 20:45
  have an executive of returns. That's a really important part
• 20:48
  of the future. Additionally, I think machine
• 20:50
  learning plays a huge part. I think what we do is extremely
• 20:53
  complex and we've started, you know, really letting some some
• 20:58
  agents help us out in smaller areas of the returns ecosystem,
• 21:02
  buying this very complex threshold together and, and
• 21:07
  asking a machine to make a decision that would take a human
• 21:11
  being on maybe 100 million UPC's, you know, months to make
• 21:15
  and run a bunch of algorithms and have a lot of mistakes that
• 21:19
  come out of the end in terms of how you disposition these items
• 21:22
  is always easier than than having a human.
• 21:25
  So I mean, that's the real disruption here.
• 21:27
  It's a machine that can thread all those things together and
• 21:30
  the understanding of the C staff level that we need this, that we
• 21:33
  have to solve this and that kind of buy in is what we've been
• 21:37
  excited about. That's why the last 16 years
• 21:39
  were fun, 1617 years. The next 16-17 years are going
• 21:42
  to be more fun. Sure they are again.
• 21:46
  Yeah. Anyway, onwards and upwards as
• 21:47
  they always say. Sandra, thank you so much for
• 21:50
  giving out. Carving some time out for us.
• 21:52
  Will you be a shop talk? I will.
• 21:54
  I will. OK.
• 21:55
  Look forward to come. I'll come and say hi.
• 21:57
  Yeah, looking forward to meeting you in person.
• 21:59
  Thank you very much, Sandra. Thank you.