Returns data revealed a leaky lip product that passed QA but failed under heat. By tracking returns by shade and category, the team catches formulation and packaging problems QA misses, then feeds that data back to product development to fix defects and protect customer lifetime value.
Return shade related, where you discovered the product problem by analyzing return by shade, and you've got different categories of products, and different returns mean different things. So that's I think the audience would love to hear that.
Yeah, definitely. I think for cosmetics, it's it's there are certain categories that there's a lower propensity to return because it's a lower barrier. Yeah. So something like a lip gloss, people aren't gonna return. They're more likely to regift it. If it's something complexion-related, if it's foundation or a concealer, and they've done work on trying to find a shade that can work for them, and then they get it and it's still the wrong shade, they're going to be a little miffed, and then they're going to want to return it. Um, but I think for us, really leveraging returns as a product feedback loop has been hugely helpful. So if something within a formula or a shade is not resonant, we will take that back to the product development team and say, yeah, X percent— we're trying We've returned it because, you know, the formula was running, or the packaging on this specific shade wasn't closing, or this is showing too yellow instead of too pink, whatever. Um, and then we'll reformulate or repackage kind of based on that feedback. But that only comes if you, again, kind of focus on the LTV of the customer and ensuring that they're going to come back and repurchase.
In fact, it's helped you identify manufacturing defects, right?
Yeah, yeah, we were having, um, a leaky lip product situation, um, that passed all of our QA. No one knew on the team because we'd done it all, and then we're getting kind of consistent feedback that this one packaging was volatile in specific temperatures that we then had to repackage.
But it was a pretty large amount of people kind of coming back, and I love the product and I love the shade, but the packaging is a mess.
So folks who are starting out in the room,
