Urban Excess
Customer Story: Swap + Urban Excess
Founded by Phil Stace just over 15 years ago, what started as a hats side project has grown into one of the UK's most forward thinking streetwear stores. Urban Excess offers a unique selection of globally sourced menswear and accessories from a diverse range of global icons, including Carhartt-WIP, Dickies, Gramicci, Patagonia, Fred Perry Reissues, Norse Projects, Sandqvist, Stan Ray, The North Face and footwear from Grenson, Karhu, Red Wing & Veja.
With three brick and mortar stores across London, Urban Excess has seen a continued shift online for certain categories of products, specifically accessories and clothing. Whilst Urban Excess took this shift in stride one growing issue was how to manage its return processes. During busy periods of the year the return rate can exceed 20% which puts added strain on already busy team. While Urban Excess offered exchanges for customer, the previous set up meant customers had to place a new order for the replacement item, while waiting for the refund from their return.
As specialists in e-commerce the Swap team very quickly understood how they could overcome the challenges Urban Excess was facing. Swap's technology enables what we call Instant Exchanges, meaning a customer can get the right item before returning the wrong one. This has reduced the time a customer has to wait for the replacement item by several days to over a week, increasing Urban Excess's retained revenue.
Through a combination of Swap's 'Shop Now' feature and Instant Exchanges, Urban Excess has seen an increase in retained revenue on returns of over 15%. Swap is also working closely with the team at Urban Excess to understand why customers are returning items. Early data suggests over 50% of customers are returning items due to issues with sizing.
As Urban Excess looks to the future and to accelerate its growth even further, Swap is excited to be a partner of such a well regarded icon of the London fashion scene.
.jpg)
