#831: How to Turn More Browsers Into Buyers

Welcome to the Boutique Chat Podcast, where we're gonna help you build a profitable, sustainable business without you having to sacrifice your profitability, your family, or your sanity. Each week we're gonna dive into real conversations with retailers who have been exactly where you are and industry experts so you can learn and know exactly what to do next, all in community over competition. Whether you're just getting started or you're growing past an 8-figure business, you're in the right spot. So let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode. All right. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast this week. I am really looking forward to this conversation. Jake, thanks so much for being on the podcast with me.

Yeah, thanks for having me here. Really excited as well.

Yeah. All right. Well, so many of you, I'm sure, that are listening to the podcast, um, maybe in some way, shape, or form have heard of Redo before. Maybe you use Redo in your business. But I'm just so impressed with the company, with the tools, with all that you guys have had to offer. So Jake, why don't you just get started by kind of introducing Redo and how you serve the industry?

Yeah, totally. So Redo, we're a fairly new company. We've only been around for about 4 years and we started out in like logistics. So most people probably know us as a returns platform where we can help drive exchange rates up higher. We're actually free to, to use for our returns. So it just helps automate things. I know when you run your boutiques and everything, there's a lot to manage. And if we can automate as much as possible, get it off your plate, that's kind of our goal. And so we've had a lot of success with that platform at the return side. From there, we branched out and now we have marketing conversion tools. We help drive people to the website and then Once they're there, we are able to do a lot of different testing and get the conversion rates up. So, uh, those people end up buying.

I love it. Okay. I wanna dive into all of that because I think all of those tools are important to talk about. Um, but let's start with, with the foundation. Like you said, let's talk about, um, shipping and returns and just logistics. I think that that's an area of business that a lot of people, um, especially when you get started, you just kind of take whatever off-the-shelf solution That's offered. You start, you know, learn the ropes of operating your business, but it's a place where there's just a lot of money that can be gained and lost really quickly. And in a business where margins are so tight, it's so important to really make sure we've got a low return rate, a higher exchange rate, and we're saving money on shipping along the way. So just in more detail, can you share with me, like, when you download the app, when you use it for free, how does it work? And really, what's the intended outcome that you have for businesses using it?

Yeah, totally. So like the biggest outcome is just like, how can we keep the revenue with the boutiques when someone needs a return? It also is really good for just getting insights because we'll allow the customer to say why they're returning it, maybe what went wrong, if it's sizing or if there's something wrong with it. And then we'll generate reports for the owners so that they know, okay, this is maybe a common trend with this type of item or Like we need to watch out for this. But really the end goal is let's try to keep as much revenue there by driving an exchange.

Yeah.

And then really just making, like, we're all about, we always say championing the underdog at Redo. So like the boutiques, you guys are going against Amazon, like all of these like big businesses and how can Redo help you guys to compete and, you know, make a lot of money and drive Uh, that revenue.

So yeah, I love that. We share that mission. I'm all about it, helping independent retailers. Are you looking for a footwear brand that your customers will actually love to wear? Corky's combines trend-forward styles and all-day comfort, making it easy for boutiques to offer shoes that their customers are gonna come back for again and again. With fast shipping, small case packs, and flexible ordering options, Corky's helps boutiques stay stocked without the stress of overbuying inventory. Whether you're a storefront boutique, a live seller, or you're a growing online business, Corky's Footwear is here to help you sell smarter and faster. Ready to see why boutiques across the country are loving Corky's? Apply today at corkysfootwear.com. That's corkysfootwear.com. Um, honestly, like that return policy, making sure you have, uh, you know, a low enough return and exchange rate. There's so much money to be won and lost there. So I love those tools. We talk about this a lot actually, Jake, inside of our RBA program, but there's been some studies that the more generous your return policy actually is, the lower the returns actually are, which I think is kind of counter to what a lot of people believe. They think like, oh, I have to have this really strict, tight return policy, 14 days with a receipt. But the truth is that actually usually increases returns and then it really increases the likelihood that that customer's never gonna shop with you again. So I think there's a lot to be said about the tools, but also just the generosity of the policy having an outcome on people who use it. Let's also talk about, besides shipping and returns, Redo is also known for the marketing and conversion tools that you guys have been rolling out. Do you wanna kind of talk high level at what some of them are and then we can dig into the details of some of your favorite?

Yeah, totally. So a lot of people ask us like, Like, you've done really well on returns logistics. Like, why move into other things? And part of it's just in this world of AI and like all of that, your AI is only as good as the data that you are feeding it. And so we have a lot of good data from our other products, from our returns and all of that. Like, we know the customers, we know where they live, we know what they buy, we know what they like, get some, all of that stuff. And so we can feed that into our new tools. And so it's really created kind of a powerful platform now where everything communicates with each other. One tool that we have is called Recover. Maybe you've seen it or heard about it, but it's really gained a lot of traction, especially with clothing boutiques, footwear type brands and businesses. Because typically they have a little bit higher of like an abandoned cart rate and different things like that. So, uh, yeah.

Okay, well, let's talk about that, uh, because that is half the game, right? There's only 3 ways to grow a business: attract new customers, get customers to buy more, and get customers to buy more often. And so half of the game is how we address abandoned carts. and abandoned browse and get people who were thinking about shopping with us, but then got distracted at the stoplight on their cell phone to come back and actually finish the purchase. So tell me about the Recover tool specifically and how it works.

Yeah, so we kind of filled this blank space that a lot of people are kind of missing. It's essentially for shoppers like first-time customers or people who have never subscribed to marketing. If they get all the way to the checkout, we know they want the item. They even start putting in their information, but then they abandon. Then we're actually able to go and reach out to them via SMS. So texting, because we have a team of, of humans. So live agents that'll actually text and say, hey, I saw you were checking out this item. Would you like me to see if I can get a discount for you? And it's fully compliant because it uses the peer-to-peer guidelines. But it, I mean, you have these shoppers that are just, they were so close. If you were able to come and give 'em a slight discount, it usually will push 'em across the finish line.

Okay, we've gotta talk more about that. I'm so intrigued. So I didn't realize this, live agent texting versus just an automatic abandoned cart email or abandoned cart flow that you set up. Give me more detail on how this works and what your typical recovery rates are versus just a standard blanket SMS.

Yeah, totally. And this is exciting because we live in a very AI automated world where now when you can come reach your customers on a personal, like human to human level, it creates a whole new experience for the customer. We even can feed into the responses like product info, the website FAQ, and we can have like conversations with with them back and forth. And then when they're ready, like we'll provide that discount code, they can go through and finish the purchase. But it's kind of, we kind of like to call it like the Delta concierge line where like if you need a change to your flight, you just text in, say I need this and they do it immediately. Like that's kind of where we want to be at and kind of the service we want to provide.

I love that. That's, I'm a Delta fan, so I totally get what you're laying down. Do you have like, best practices or stories you've seen from stores that are using this and maybe what the outcome has been for them if they've seen a huge lift in actual recovered carts?

Totally. So we would expect like at a very bare minimum, a 5% conversion rate, but we typically will see 6 to 10 and then sometimes even get higher than that just depending on what discount you're offering, all of that, what products you're selling. And then also we really focus on the reply rate. So to know, like, because not only are we trying to recover the revenue, but we also want to find out why did they abandon? I mean, they got all the way there, what happened? And so a lot of times when you reach out to them, they'll even tell you like, oh, I really needed it shipped a little faster, or some reason maybe, oh, my size was, was out of stock, or whatever it is. And That gives you, like the owners, really good insight into what's happening. So even if we only convert 10% of the texts we send out, but we get a 40% reply rate, there's 30% in there where you're just getting super good data to use for future customers.

Yeah, for sure. Wow. Okay. Are there, if you look across some of the stores that are using this feature, do you think that there's like standard best practices? Like, is there a certain discount that they're typically offering or? Are there other best practices that you've seen?

Yeah, so discounts will help. Typically it doesn't have to be anything crazy, like 10 to 20% is normally what we see, but it's more of just like the fact that you reached out that sticks with the customer. It doesn't matter as much what the actual discount is. There are some cases where you could add in like a free gift if you're running something Like if you're doing a site-wide sale and everything's already 25% off and you wanna be, do a little more, something a little extra or a wow factor, you could add in like a little gift. But we can alter it and we can do A/B testing. So we could test like a gift versus a discount and see what performs better. Yeah.

Okay, I love it. My nerdy marketing heart loves A/B testing. So I think that's a huge opportunity to definitely test and see what the outcome is. So as this is happening with SMS, Are you guys also offering this via email marketing as well? Or are there other channels that you're also kind of attacking abandoned carts?

So this one is mainly just SMS, just because we've seen now with email automation, everything, everyone's inboxes are so full. Like I get probably, I don't know, 200 to 300 emails a day. I'm not going to be opening 99% of those. And so we think that going the SMS route is just a very much more direct. And you're much more likely to get those replies. Like we typically see a 25 to 40% reply rate, which is pretty crazy, pretty high. So with this tool specifically, it's mainly built for the texting side.

Yeah, what's the stat? They say an average text message is viewed like 90-some percent in the first 5 minutes, which is starkly different than email marketing. You mentioned just being compliant as well. That's a big piece of no matter what kind of text you're sending or what platform you're sending it with, making sure you're compliant. That's a really big deal these days as well. So I appreciate that. What other marketing and conversion tools is Redo offering right now?

Yeah, so we have Recover, which is like, okay, they got to the website, got to the checkout, they left, but how can we prevent that from even happening where we need to use Recover? So that's where we're getting into conversion. You're paying all this money, maybe you're running ads or whatever you're doing to get people to the site. Let's, let's really optimize that experience so we can get those rates up of actually purchasing. So we have a thing called Pre-Recover, something we do on the website. It's essentially a pop-up that'll come and we're able to bucket shoppers. by hot, warm, cold, and really like, or sorry, cool and then cold. And if they're a really hot shopper, like we think they're gonna buy anyway, we're not gonna formulate this popup. Typically it's a discount and typically it's like the same as your welcome flow. So a business will usually have, if you subscribe, if you put in your email or phone, you'll get 10% off.

Yeah.

We usually will do that, but this doesn't exchange, it doesn't require the exchange of information. So we reduce that friction. If somebody is going from more of a warm to a cold shopper, we're like, they're probably going to abandon. We surface the discount. It's just a button and it'll get them to the checkout page as fast as possible. Once they're there, we do upsells in the cart. We do A/B testing on shipping. Normally, if you can just do like a 25 or 50% off shipping discount for a first-time customer, that really will help conversion because People hate paying for shipping. So doing, and it's only like a $2 or $3 discount. It's not a huge discount, but just knowing I'm getting 50% off shipping is a huge thing. And we do post-purchase upsells too. So however our North Star number is average revenue per order. And if we can get that up, then it's a win.

Again, yeah, 3 ways to grow your business. I mean, that is one of the most important ones. That's much more cost-effective than trying to attract new customers. And again, I think that's the shiny object in marketing is everyone's, you know, wanting to find new, new, new, more, more, more traffic. But how about we just serve the people who are already here that much better and get them to buy more and then get them to come back and buy again and buy more often? Are there other best practices? I asked you this just on the SMS feature, but if you look across your customer base, are there other best practices that you see stores utilizing that are using your services that you want to share?

Yeah, I would say that, that first-time shipping discount has been just huge in conversion lift. Like with that tool alone too, we would expect at least a 3x ROI using that suite, but we'll see brands get like a 20x ROI pretty occasionally. Using the optimization and the checkout tools.

Yeah.

So best practices, you, when you come to Redo, you'll notice we're very like a white glove service, but we also, there's a whole team that is dedicated to your numbers and just obsessing over how can we raise these numbers. And so we'll try different tests, we'll do different things. So I would say just really talk to your, you know, account manager and Strategize. And, and we help a lot of brands do that, and we'll, I mean, do 90% of it where we can figure out what tests we think would be the best.

Okay, I love that. Tell me a little bit more about that experience when someone's interested in Redo. And you guys, I'll link up all of Redo's information in the show notes today, but when someone's interested, I'm assuming they come and have a discovery call with yourself or someone from your team. Um, and then tell me about that onboarding experience. How quickly can we get things Really integrated and how quickly can we start to notice some changes in results?

Totally. We try to make it as seamless as possible. Recover in itself, the abandoned cart tool is literally just a toggle. You just push it on and anything at Redo is, uh, all of our products are no contracts. So we tell people, if you try something for 2 weeks and you hate it, it's not working for you, you're not seeing results, like turn it off. We don't want you using it. And that's also, I think, where we're kind of winning in space because a lot of people are bound to their contracts and it's like, that's just a bad way to do business. It's not good for anyone. You don't want people just dreading you. And so we try to provide that service where, hey, there's no risk to try it out. If you hate it, you can turn it off. We also will dedicate an account manager to every account and they'll help with You know, optimizing things. But on the checkout side, it's usually a 15-minute call. Just figure out what tests do we want to run, what do we think is most effective, and go from there.

Okay, awesome. Well, Jake, this has been so helpful. Anything else on— I just want to know the founding story. How did Redo get started? Where are you guys headquartered? How did you guys get into this space?

Yeah. So we were started like right after COVID, or I think even during COVID And it kind of, you know, the beginning was a little bit rough from what I, from what I hear. I wasn't there when it was started, but eventually it just gained a lot of traction. And over this 4 years, we're already at 300 employees and we're hiring like crazy. We're just growing. We have over 5,000 brands that use Redo. And it's kind of blown up. And so, um, a lot of different factors there, but I think just that theory of championing the underdog, the brands, how can we make the brands win? And then we use the analogy of a vending machine, um, which I, I don't know, someone told it to me and it kind of impacted me, but essentially Redo just wants to be a vending machine where you give us a dollar. And for every dollar that you give us, we bring you back 5. And so if it makes sense with the ROI, then it's like a no-brainer. Um, most of our products are free performance-based pricing, um, or there is some sort of ROI guarantee where if, even if you have to pay for the service, if it doesn't return you the ROI, then we just refund your money.

Wow.

So we try to make it just as easy to get started and, and that's kind of All part of our story of like who we are.

Yeah, okay, that's awesome. Well, Jake, thanks so much for being here today and sharing more about Redo. We have so many customers inside of the Boutique Hub, so many community members who use Redo. So I love the fact that you guys are growing, expanding, testing different areas of the funnel essentially, because together we need to make this industry as strong as we can. So thank Thanks again, Jake, for being on the podcast today. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Ashley.

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you found it helpful, please share it with a friend or feel free to subscribe. And I would always love it if you would leave a rating and review. Hey, if you want more tools, education, and just support, head on over to theboutiquehub.com. Or if you have feedback or episode ideas, DM me personally, AJ Alderson, on Instagram. Thanks so much for being here and listening to this week's episode. I'll see you next week.