UK brand BullyBillows transforms returns with Loop

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Born in Nottingham, UK in 2018, BullyBillows is dedicated to providing best-in-class dog harnesses, collars, leashes, and other accessories for their customer base of over 450,000 pet owners and trainers worldwide. The brand has a strong focus on R&D, partnering with the Nottingham Trent University Animal & Science Department to test specific products and trial them to ensure maximum levels of safety and comfort on all of their products.

The Challenge: Streamlining the returns experience

Before partnering with Loop, BullyBillows had used an alternative returns management solution—but it left a lot to be desired, largely due to poor integration with their Shopify Plus platform. The returns process took a lot of labour time, which ate into margins and led to manual errors.

BullyBillows also wanted to optimise the experience for their customers. Their previous solution had a basic interface that didn’t include many of the features they needed to drive upsell revenue and exchanges. That meant they were overspending on high operational costs, and leaving money on the table from missed retention and upsell opportunities.

In terms of their priorities in choosing a new solution, says Anthony Koumi, CEO and Co-Founder of BullyBillows, “the first thing is making the customer journey as clear as possible. Then it's retaining revenue. And then it's having full control over the revenue retained.”

Revenue retention through Exchanges

BullyBillows made their returns management platform transition just before Black Friday 2023. Though it may seem like a chaotic time to make a major infrastructure change, “to be honest with you, it worked really well,” says Koumi.

They knew that they were likely to see more return requests than usual from shoppers who’d received gift cards or products as gifts. “It’s the busiest time of the year,” says Koumi. “If we can help people to get exchanges instead of refunding gift cards, we’re going to save a lot of money.”

The brand typically has around £250,000 worth of refunds each year. “How can we bring that down?” asks Koumi. “Loop offered not only the gift card or the refund, it offered the exchange option, which is very popular for us. So the customers could just change for a different size instantly. Otherwise, we would have noticed before, the customer is going to send it back for a gift card.”

Koumi notes that over the previous four years, their customers had accumulated over £40,000 in unused gift cards—meaning that none of those shoppers were exploring the brand’s offerings or becoming committed customers.

By making the move to Loop, BullyBillows was instantly able to benefit from Loop’s streamlined customer returns portal, which encourages customers to choose an exchange and swap out a product they don’t like for one they’ll love. The ease of exchanging is helping the brand naturally grow their base of loyal, recurring customers.

‘With Loop, the great thing is you’ve got a much more interactive customer portal. It’s much easier [for customers], and holds your hand a bit more along the process,” says Koumi. “So it is worth the investment.”

Exchanges

Transform refund requests into exchanges and store credit

Time savings, error reduction, and revenue protection with automation

With their previous solution, BullyBillows’ CX team was spending a lot of time manually reviewing return requests and communicating with customers. When a customer requested a return, the team needed to search for order numbers in Shopify to process return outcomes, and manually calculate adjustments to the refund amount based on factors such as return fees and discounts. As a result, the error rate was high, and CX agents were spending a disproportionate amount of time processing returns instead of solving higher-level problems for their customers.

With Loop, the brand was able to fully automate the returns process for their shoppers and lead them to the right outcome, whether they wanted a refund, exchange, or store credit. “That alone saves us a lot of time and money from mistakes,” says Koumi.

BullyBillows also charges a return fee for customers who choose refunds over exchanges, which helps them maintain a low return rate of 6 to 8%. Return fees incentivise shoppers to consider an exchange, and help the brand protect their margins by covering the costs of managing reverse logistics. “As long as we give the customer good service everywhere else, and an easy return portal, [charging for returns] isn't going to be the main reason why they're never going to buy from us again,” says Koumi.

Returns

Automate returns to reduce manual labor, prevent errors, and protect margins

The impact: A streamlined experience for staff and shoppers

BullyBillows has transformed its returns experience by partnering with Loop. As a Shopify native app, Loop seamlessly integrates with the brand’s ecommerce platform, eliminating the hours of manual labour previously spent on returns. And the user-friendly returns portal encourages customers to choose an exchange over a refund or gift card, driving higher customer retention rates.

Optimize your returns to drive profits

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Enhancing control over return outcomes

Loop’s intuitive returns portal makes it easy for shoppers to understand their options, creating a seamless process that helps boost the brand’s exchange rates and retain more revenue from returns.

“We could have different tiers of the customer journey. So, if you send for a refund, you're going to lose 50p. If you want to exchange, it's going to be cheaper. “It allows us to actually entice customers to stick with an exchange or gift card,” says Koumi. “It’s all about the customer journey and revenue retention.”

Automating processes for better accuracy and time management

BullyBillows was able to quickly onboard with Loop, requiring less than 30 days to complete the implementation process. They felt confident that making the switch before a mission-critical time would set them up for success during Peak Season—and they’re thrilled with the outcome.

Switching to Loop has saved the brand’s CX team approximately 1,786 hours (equating to £20,655.12) in manual data entry and communications, and empowered them to ensure accuracy in their returns process. “I can have full faith in the staff, knowing that the returns are going to be processed correctly,” says Koumi.

“You know that the system is going to refund the customer, or give them an exchange or a gift card to exactly what they want. As long as we check the product's fine, we just click ‘process,’ and it's done.”

As a best-in-class dog products brand, BullyBillows has found Loop to be a worthy partner in their success. By teaming up with Loop, Bull Billows has conserved CX time, reduced costly errors, and increased its exchange and gift card ratios to retain more than £200K in revenue.

“If you want to streamline your business, make less errors, and save time, use Loop,” says Koumi.

Gain confidence in your returns process.

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