How Brandon Blackwood upleveled their return operations with Loop

Learn more about Brandon Blackwood:

Brandon Blackwood New York is a contemporary fashion brand that features accessories such as handbags and shoes, as well as new categories such as Ready-To-Wear.

The Brandon Blackwood philosophy believes in creating pieces that are timeless and classic silhouettes with a trendy edge. Working with a distinctive palette of subtle colors, designs and textures, each piece is designed with the contemporary consumer in mind while also focusing on high-quality detailing and unparalleled materials.

The Challenge: Transitioning to a new system

After receiving notice in 2023 that their previous returns management solution, Returnly, was shutting down, Brandon Blackwood’s team knew that they needed to find an alternative vendor—and this time, they were ready to level up to a premium experience.

After evaluating several providers, the brand landed on Loop. They soon realized that by investing more into their returns technology, they’d be able to vastly improve their return operations.

“Loop was the most seamless integration for me, and the timeline for the onboarding process was the fastest,” says Neema Fraizer, Director of Logistics at Brandon Blackwood. “That really was my initial attraction to it, but also the automation. Previously, I had to do everything manually.”

Retaining more revenue with incentivized upsells

Brandon Blackwood offers products in many different sizes, styles, and colors—and shoppers don’t always land on a product they love on their first attempt. But thanks to Loop’s seamless exchange process and upsell options, they’re now much more likely to give the brand a second try.

Loop’s Instant Exchange and Shop Now & Later features create an effortless experience for shoppers to swap out one product for another—and by offering Bonus Credit, the brand has been able to encourage more shoppers to choose higher-priced products during the exchange process.

For example, “we have one style, the Kendrick trunk, that's really popular,” says Fraizier. “It comes in a Mini or Standard. A lot of the time, the customer will order the Mini and say, ‘Oh, wait, it's too small.’ The price difference between the two trunks is 25 dollars. So we just offer 10 dollars to give them that push. Our previous solution did not offer that incentive at all.”

Bonus Credit offers boost upsell rates.

Shop Now & Later

Workflows elevate the merchant experience

When Brandon Blackwood engages in promotions, such as a major sales event, Loop’s Workflows tool makes it easy for them to set up custom rules around returns.

“The workflows are really phenomenal,” says Fraizier. “Those are things that we use for Black Friday - Cyber Monday promotions, where items are non-returnable. We're going to set the workflow so that, if tagged BFCM, it will not be returnable in Loop. Something as simple as just setting a tag—I couldn't do that in my previous returns platform.”

Using Workflows enables Brandon Blackwood to easily set and enforce custom policies around their sales promotions, and eliminates the hassle of dealing with customer queries around returns for non-eligible items, since shoppers can easily see which items are returnable or not within their self-service returns portal. Loop’s automation features help Brandon Blackwood deliver a seamless experience for their shoppers—and for their own CX team.

“[Before Loop,] I didn't have automations for creating different workflows or, ‘Hey, I want this to be a non-returnable collection,’ says Fraizier. “I had to do it by SKUs specifically, or I would have to manually go in and cancel a return and create a new one. With Loop, they've really elevated my experience as well.”

Create and enforce custom policies for any purpose.

Workflows

Offset drives added revenue

Brandon Blackwood was already charging fees for customer return shipping—so trying out Loop’s newest cost-savings tool, Offset, was a no-brainer. Offset works by asking shoppers to pay a small surcharge at the point of purchase to gain access to free returns later.

The product is available in two revenue models, Free and Flex. Offset Free has Loop collect the Offset and handling fees, and merchants pay no software or US return shipping fees. With Offset Flex, merchants take ownership of the revenue stream from Offset themselves, but are still responsible for software and return shipping fees.

Offset and the promise of a free return gives shoppers a push to try out the Brandon Blackwood brand or a new product, increasing checkout conversion rates by 12%. But because most customers who pay the Offset fee don’t end up actually returning products, the brand is able to build a cash cushion to support its reverse logistics costs.

Cover your return costs with a new revenue stream.

Offset

Seamless integrations streamline operations

Fraizier also praises Loop for its deep integration capabilities. The brand uses Shopify for its ecommerce platform, Gorgias for its customer service platform, and Yotpo for its loyalty rewards program—and Loop works seamlessly with all three solutions.

“Loop is one of the most compatible softwares I have,” says Fraizier. “Right now, I'm looking into other ERPs and OMSs. And they're like, “yeah, Loop, no problem. It's literally never an issue. Loop is beyond user-friendly.”

Sync all your tools, stress-free.

Integrations

The impact: Streamlined operations and higher revenue retention

Upgrading their returns management solution to Loop’s suite of products has shown Brandon Blackwood the difference that investing in a premium experience can make.

Higher revenue retention with upsells

Loop’s Instant Exchange and Shop Now & Later features have boosted the brand’s customer retention rate, with Bonus Credit encouraging them to increase their average order value. By giving their shoppers access to tantalizing upsell offers, the brand has been able to boost their revenue retention from returns to 30%, with $3.03 upsell per return.

Time savings with Workflows and automation

Loop’s automation features empower the brand to set up and enforce returns policies with no reliance on customer support, providing a great shopper experience while saving about $4,040 on CX time in a year and preserving that CX agent time for higher-touch support needs.

Offset unlocks a new stream of revenue

By embracing Offset Flex, Brandon Blackwood has been able to capture a new line of revenue that they can use to support their reverse logistics operations. During early trials, 29% of shoppers who were offered Offset chose to purchase the product, and less than 15% of those actually made a return—resulting in an additional $20,000 in net revenue for the brand after return shipping costs.

See the payoff from a premium returns solution.