How to Manage your Return Costs in Today's Market

With market conditions taking a turn for the worse in recent months it is more important than ever for e-commerce stores to manage their costs. Returns can make up around 15% of all e-commerce costs with shipping, labour and wastage.

At Swap we have come up with four simple ways to help manage your costs while increasing retained revenue.

Make Exchanges Easy

Over half of all returns processed on Swap’s platform are due to size. By providing customers with an easy, intuitive exchange process customers will be more inclined to take an exchange over a refund. This allows stores to retain more revenue that no longer needs to be paid out as refunds and makes sure customers get the item they want.  

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Shop Around for the Best Shipping Rates

With the logistics market becoming more and more competitive opportunities for cost savings are growing.In the UK, Royal Mail is still the prominent player however DHL, DPD and Evri are growing their footprint quickly and can offer rates for high volume-commerce that are comparable or better to Royal Mail.

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Incentivise Store Credit

If you can encourage customers to take a store credit in place of a refund you will save significantly on refund payments. Swaps Shop Now feature is built for just this. Across all our stores we are seeing around 10% of customers opt for Store Credit. This adds up quickly and can save your business significantly in the long run.

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Make your Return Policy Readily Available

Over 68% of shoppers look at a return policy before making a purchase. Hiding your return policy in an effort to dissuade returns will just frustrate your shoppers. A clear return policy can actually increase conversion rate, reduce customer churn and drive your CAC down even further.

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