Swap is the leading returns platform for e-commerce companies.
They give you the ability to track, ship and insure your product and give customers the option to return or exchange products, while also doing their bit for the planet with offering repair and recycle options.
1. What’s your name and title, what do you do day-to-day in 20 words or fewer?
Cian Wright – VP Partnerships.
I’d like to think, I’m an ambassador for all things Swap to the outside Ecommerce world – helping get us connected with the people and teams from tech to agencies who have the expertise to help our clients take it to the next level.
2. At Swap you help brands save time and money on returns and also offer a seamless exchange experience for customers. Can you give us a success story for a D2C brand you’ve worked with. Eg what was the problem? what did you do? what were the results?
We really try and solve two problems – the impacts of refunds on a brands bottom line and the cost of actually getting a returned item back to you.
We have clients who now keep 1/3rd of all refund requests as cashflow in the business through exchanges or incentivised gift cards, that 1/3rd can really add, up we have a customer retaining millions per year with us. With our local shipping accounts and ability to consolidate goods in multiple regions we’ve been able to cut the cost of returning an item nearly in half.
3. You specialise in returns. What piece of advice would you give to DTC brands who want to improve store performance?
Think very intentionally about your returns policy and what behaviour’s it encourages and ask questions/gather data as part of your returns flow. The no.1 way to reduce returns is by getting to the root of why they’re happening.
4. What do you think the biggest challenges facing eCommerce/D2C businesses will be over the next 12-18 months?
I think cash flow is going to be a killer for many ecomm brands. 80% of all businesses fail over cashflow issues.
It’s harder and harder to get funding with some of the RBF providers leaving the market so the focus should be on retention of customer and retention of revenue.
Returns are a real killer when you’ve paid out to acquire a customer only to lose that acquisition cost and the shipping investment etc.
5. Complete this sentence – DTC brands that survive and thrive in 2023 will …
Focus on revenue first. Brands that really understand who their best customers are and how to retain them have a clear advantage. So many brands are focused on acquiring customers at all costs they don’t step back to think which ones actually drive revenue and how to double down on them.