Pioneering the online exchange experience. The Loop Returns story.

Hello and welcome to E Commerce Growth Stories. This is your hostess with the mostest, Juliana Jackson, aka the CLV lady. And also I am the Chief Evangelist for OmniConvert.

And this is Valentin Radu, CEO of OmniConvert. Thank you for tuning in today for a new episode of E Commerce. Great stories.

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In the last episode of Ecommerce Growth Stories, we talked with Alex, which is a fantastic phenomenon in the area of retention marketing. And we spoke about things related to what's happening after the purchase and returns and refunds are separate animals. And moreover, we also addressed the topic of retaining more customers simply by being a human being. So check this episode out.

And we are live and recording good people and audience of Ecommerce Growth Stories. This is Juliana and I'm here, and I'm here with Alex, which I'm going to try to like. His, his last name is not what it looks like. So I'm just going to go hard. It's a very hard name. I'm going to try to do it one more time. So it's Alex McCraken McEachern.

But no one ever gets this right. You look at it and it sound, it's spelled like Nick Etern. So that's what I get all the time.

That's how I said it. Okay, okay, so it's, it's. Can you say it again?

Alex McEachren.

Okay, great. So I'm here with Alex. Alex, he's the brand marketing, the brand marketing manager for Loop Returns. And right now, coming on screen in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It's my co host Valentin, who's a bit shy, but I see his face there and there he is. Hi, Valentin, how are you? Doing my special guest again.

I can't hear you. Just a second.

Thank God, because I don't want to look for a new job. So cool. Alex, thank you so much for being here with us today. I'm very excited to talk to you because you are in the same space as us. I hope Valentin can hear us now or not. See, this is the type of things that I was telling you. When you do a live podcast, things like this happen and everyone is seeing them.

You're very brave.

I am very brave indeed. So, Alex, you are the brand marketing manager for Loop Returns. Clearly, a lot of people that signed up today for the show know who you are, but we have people that are listening offline to the podcast. So why don't you just introduce to yourself first and then tell us a bit more about what Loop does?

Sure. I. I always say that tell me about yourself is the hardest question that I get asked on any podcast. I feel like I'm not a very interesting person, but I've spent the last seven years in E commerce. Worked for a loyalty rewards program for Shopify stores called Smile, previously called Sweet Tooth. Spent about five years there, helping brands build retention strategies and loyalty programs to keep. Keep people coming back. And over the last year and a half, I've been with Loop Returns. And Loop Returns is the exchange first returns platform for Shopify. So we basically allow customers to kind of choose their own adventure to get the right outcome for what they're doing with their return, get them that label, and automate that process for the brand.

Okay, cool. So when I. When I first got in touch with you, maybe I don't know how much time it's been, maybe like six to seven, seven months, because the pandemic had me lost all sense of time and space. I think you guys were one of the few, if not the only people. Maybe you have some sort of competition, but I'm not.

I don't.

I don't know of it, but I think you guys kind of pioneered this category of Exchange and Returns. But before we go and talk a bit more about that, this is something I always ask everyone. I warned you about this. This is my, you know, my question. How did you get into e commerce? Because 99% of the times, it's always an accident.

I'm not gonna break that trend. It was also an accident. I went to school for marketing, and when I came out of college, I was looking for my first job like everyone does. I was talking to two different companies. One was in, like, forensic investigations. So basically, like Working with cops to find, like, evidence digitally. And I was like, oh, I want to work for that. I want to work for that company. And that one ended up falling through. And I took my second choice. And if anyone from Sweet Tooth or Smiles listening, they're probably hearing this for the first time. But ended up working at Sweet Tooth as my second choice. And I was like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna see what this is all about, and then maybe I'll find something new. And ended up spending five years, like I said, there in the e commerce world. And while I was there, I loved. I just love the ecosystem so much. I started up my own store just to kind of, like, keep myself busy on the side. And we were selling men's grooming supplies, so was working for a loyalty company on Shopify. Also had my own Shopify store going at the same time. So the best accident of my life for sure.

So what's the name of that store and why didn't I know about that?

It. Because it's not a store anymore. We. I ended up shutting it down. It was taken up a little too much of my time for how much money it was making. It was not the most successful store store in the world, but it was called Spearhead Life.

Okay. So I guess, you know, running your own store to gave you a much more like 360 view of what it is to deal with an E commerce brand. Because it's a lot going on. It's a lot on the plates of, you know, this E commerce owner. So I guess, you know, it helped you, you know, visualize the whole, I guess, E commerce brand journey, because we're always talking about the customer journey, but it's also their journey as well in the industry. So the reason why I invited you over was because I want to talk two big topics with you today. First of all, I want to talk, of course, about retention, but secondly, I also want to talk about the category design and category creation because as you know, we are doing kind of the same thing with customer value optimization. And I just want to know, like, if you guys plan to design this category or to own this category in E commerce or. It just happened.

Yeah. I think where loop really stands out is in exchanges. So when we're talking about returns, like, I wouldn't say loops define the returns category. Returns has been a thing for a really long time. I think where we've carved something out is we say that returns don't equal refunds. And I think that a lot of the e commerce community we use those two terms synonymously. A return and a refund are the exact same thing. But 52% of people, when they go to return something is because they have the wrong size. So if you assume that everyone just wants their money back on something, then you're making a bad assumption because more than half are just looking to get into a new product, a new size, a new color, or something like that. So the category creation is more around this idea of exchanges being the most important return outcome and the customer experience and retention side of when you focus on exchanges rather than refunds. So, again, I don't know if loop. I mean, if people think that loop created the returns category, great. I think where we're really trying to carve out that category, though, is returns are a marketing asset. They're a customer experience play. It's not just this logistic tool and way to cut costs.

Yeah. And I think you guys come in handy a lot in the customer support part. I. As you know, my husband works for Common client that we have. I'm not gonna mention, of course. Hey, Valentin, welcome back.

Hey there. The gods of the Internet allowed me to join you.

Awesome. I just didn't want to, you know, miss the chance to say on Live that, you know, you were not here and then you came back. So, Valentin, before I continue, the question that I have for Alex, I want you to try to pronounce Alex name.

Okay. So it's make econ.

That was closer than mine.

Mcacachern. Okay.

How are you saying it? Right? Yeah, I'm mad. So, yeah, just go where we. We. I wanted to ask you because I think returns and exchanges are so confusing for brands in the sense that, again, people are very fast to give the money back instead of trying to actually help the customer. And where I see your. Where I see the biggest use of your loop is in direct relationship with customer support. Right. So if someone, obviously you go to customer support, you say, I want, you know, this. The size doesn't fit me. This product is not good for me, you know, give me a refund. And then if they are saying already that the size is not good for them or it doesn't work for them and they want the refund, is the customer support people, you know, job to say, but don't you want to get the perfect, you know, the better size for you? And I know your platform is like one click, one click thing, and like, it's super easy for everyone to use, but how do you. How did you educate the brands to understand the difference between A refund and a return. Because I'm assuming you had some sort of issues right there.

How did we do it? I'd say we're still doing it. This idea of refund return not being the same thing, I feel like a lot of the brands who use Loop, they understand this and it's starting to become more common knowledge. But yeah, there's definitely still some education to do there. And like you were saying, on the support side of things, like, that's definitely an area where Loop helps. And I feel like a lot of times it's you go, go to maybe 10 different E comm sites and take a look at the returns page and a lot of them are going to say, hey, email us, call us, send this product back to this address. And that experience is like really tough for a customer because, okay, think about the vulnerability you feel when you have the wrong product. Say, I bought a pair of shoes, I'm super excited to wear them. I get them, I open up the box, I try them on and they're size too small or they're a size too big. It's like that moment, I'm very vulnerable and very scared about what's going to happen next.

Yep.

And that vulnerability can turn into frustration very quickly. So if I have to then go email someone, that person takes like three hours or two hours to get back to me. Or maybe there's no coverage for a smaller brand, there's no coverage over the weekend and they don't get back to me till Monday. That vulnerability turns into frustration extremely quickly. So if you can turn that vulnerability into like a delight moment, and that's where Loop kind of comes in, is that person can start the return process on their own. They can jump in there, they can quickly say, hey, I want a new, I just want a new size. I want to go from a size 8 to a size 9. And I can click that. It shows me what my options are, shows me what's in stock or not. And I can just be like, hey, I want that. I grab the label, hits the post office. As soon as it hits the post office, the next product's on its way out. To me.

I agree. And I think it's so bad in general when you like sometimes because the whole process is so shady and so confusing. People just give up on trying to return, especially if it's a low value product. When you spend more money though, that is when, you know, the interesting thing, you know, begins. I think Valentin had to return a lot of what was that volunteer that you bought? And you had to return the. How do you call it? It's an English word that I don't find right now, but I did want it to return it. Oh my God. Yeah. So I, I mean, what, what I mean is that when the product is more expensive, the frustration is even worse. And why do you think brands don't communicate very well this part with returns and exchanges?

Yeah. So what you were saying there about like people keeping returns. So we did a consumer research study and we found that 90% of people have kept something that they actually wanted to return. So that just speaks to like returns in the past or even for most brands right now is a very confusing process and like a very time consuming process. And a lot of people say, like, hey, that's not worth it. And for those more expensive items, like, that's where people start to say, okay, it's worth it. Like, I can't. I bought Elmo. $700. I don't know, MP3 player. Do people still buy those? Probably not, but if I'm holding an ipod or whatever, an ipod, it doesn't even exist. I feel like everyone's just using their phone. But anyway, if you have a really, really expensive purchase, you're going to be much more likely to actually engage in returning that. And I feel like the problem isn't that like on the customer side. I feel like the problem is actually on the brand side right now. Because when brands think of returns as a cost center, it's like, okay, how do I reduce my costs? I try to make it so that people don't want to return. And like, when, hey, email me, call me, send. Like the worst one is like, hey, here's an address. Just send that product back to this like, doc and like, hope something happens is I feel like brands are either consciously or subconsciously trying to deter that return from happening because they don't want to do a refund and give the money back now. They're out the price of the product, they're out the price of shipping it. There's a lot of costs associated with that. So when people are in mitigation mode, they make things harder, they bury it. Like sometimes when we go to a brand, you're going to go to the bottom of their site and you're looking for that returns link. You can't even find it. You got to go into like the FAQs. In the FAQs go into like returns and shipping and you got to go like six steps to find like, how do I actually return something? And people burying that people hiding it. It's, I mean, in my personal opinion, that's a bad call because returns are a huge opportunity for your business. It's not just a cost to mitigate.

I absolutely agree. And I think when you do this type of service, obviously you're not going to get consumers to buy again from you because your experience is shit. So, so at the end of the day, you know, the same people that, you know you're making the life so hard for, you're gonna bomb them with sales messages, you know, like, buy this, buy this and get this discount too. And, you know, let's, let's get you, you know, go through all this shit again. So I agree, and I think it's one of the hidden layers of customer experience. And I don't think we talk enough about this part of customer experience. Don't you agree, Valentin? Because I don't think we talked about this.

I was actually looking at the benchmarks on your website, Alex, on loop, and it's one insight that is there is one out of four customers will return. And that means if one out of four customers will return, they will be on the website while the website is doing only the job of buying. I mean, it's addressing only the job that the visitors have in order to buy a new product or to buy a product, not to return, not to ask things regarding their shipment, nothing like that. And I think it's, it's a tremendous job that you are doing addressing this part of the, of the customer journey. My, let's say my concern is, or, or my, my curiosity is why is the, why are so few companies aware about the fact that returns are so important? I mean, it's, it's easy to actually look at your own data. What do you think, Alex?

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. Like, why. I guess that boils down to like, why aren't people paying attention to this and 100% agree with what you were saying there. It's like every site is optimized to get people to buy. And at Loop, what we say is like, you shouldn't be optimizing for people to buy. You should be optimizing for people to shop. And shopping doesn't stop when, like, I just go to the cash register and check out. It's like, it's everything that's going into, like, what does the product look like if I do need to exchange or do anything there? Like, the customer experience doesn't stop at the purchase. And we call that post purchase. Why do so few brands Pay attention to this. I don't know. One, I mean, I'm sure we're going to get into this conversation at some point during this, this, this talk. But like acquisition versus retention, like the E commerce community is very obsessed with ads. Buy more, sell more. How do I get as many customers in the door as possible? We're only now starting to see like, I would say a meaningful shift onto the retention side of like, how do I maximize the value of the customers I already have? How do I be everything to the customers I do have? And that's where returns start to enter into the equation. And a lot of times like I think a lot of brands when they first get started, return like they don't have a high enough volume of returns to really care about it. So it ends up being this like page where like basically they just go and check another brand, copy it, put it on their site and like they don't even touch it until returns become a big enough problem to like actually reevaluate that. So that's also my theory on why every return policy is 30 days is because a brand just like makes one, another one comes and copies it, another one comes and copies it and everyone just makes 30 day return windows.

That's funny. That's hilarious. And I think it's also true because you're right. Actually I did some research at some point and that's true. Like the terms of services, the shipment, the return policies is mostly like Xerox all over the Internet. Probably Nike did it first, then someone took it and you know, it got to the direct token to the smaller mid market here. And everyone is using the same things. At least they're changing the name of the company, which is, you know, always good because otherwise you're right, it's a Xerox copy. So I want to, I mean, you said the right words earlier. There's this meme circulating with me on LinkedIn with acquisition and customer lifetime value. And it's like a Simpson person. And when I hear customer lifetime value, I get someone then an acquisition. So I have to show that to you, Valentin. It's hilarious.

Yeah, I saw that.

People are nuts. So I want to ask you something in regards to what you were saying earlier. So I think indeed in the market it's a lot of progress when it comes to how we approach retention. And retention is more I guess, talked about than it was like two years ago. And I think all of us here, even in the audience and us here talking, we're responsible for spreading that good word. But at the same time there is also a very big barrier for brands. And, and I'm sure you have encountered this as well because you also do client facing in your job. So why do you think people are so fast and comfortable spending? I don't know who said. I think Aaron from Heist said spending bitcoins on ads and not wanting to invest into retention, even if retention is, it has a high roi, it's everything. But people are very fast to purchase. Why? I don't want to make actually a leading question. So why do you think that happens?

I think the reason that Ecom puts so much emphasis on acquisition is there's two reasons. I think it's the way it's always been done. So like anyone coming into E commerce or like let's be like, realistically E comm hasn't been around for that long. So like you talk to a lot of people in E commerce and like they've maybe been in E comm for like three years, a lot of people are coming in. Like there's a lot of influx of people joining E Comm right now. And what's the first thing you're going to do is you're going to start to research and you're going to start googling around like, what should I be doing? I'm brand new into E commerce. What's my job all about? And like all the literature that's out there right now is all about like return on ad spend. It's about like being efficient, like with your Facebook ads, your Instagram ads. So there's just so much education out there on acquisition that someone new coming in, when they go to look, it's what they're going to find. Fine. So I think that's one reason. Second reason is acquisition is like the quickest dopamine hit in the world. It's like I start an ad like this morning and I can start to see results from that in the afternoon. So it's very easy to attribute like, oh, sales are coming through as a result of something I did. And that retention is not like that. Like if you start with retention right now and the idea is like how do I get a customer to come back and make another purchase? If your time between purchases is like 30, 40 days, I do something today and I'm not going to know what happened with that for another 40 days. So I think from, from like people's perspectives, it's riskier, right? It's like I'm doing something right now and I don't know what happened. For another 40 days. And I think we're, the industry doesn't have enough leading indicators to be like, okay, what are the things that happen between this and a sale? So I think a lot of people get started with it and then they kind of throw it away because they didn't give it enough time.

Yeah. However, people are still gardening after millennials. Right. And they plant the seeds and they wait for months to see what's happening. And I think that means the long term perspective companies will be the winners because you need to take into account this part of the customer journey as well. And getting back to what you're saying, I think it's amazing because this, this short side approach is somehow becoming the norm. When you are looking at discussions, forums on the e commerce groups and so on, you only see things like cpm, ros and so on. It's like those are the only things that matter. And nobody's paying attention to the fact that we need more case studies and best practices about what's happening post the first purchase. And few people are, are even aware about things that, that you've said about what is the average days, average time between the transactions. How can I take into account the buying cycles so that I'm not bombarding the customers with other things while they are, they haven't finished consuming maybe the products that I've, that I've sold?

Yeah, I love that. I love that gardening metaphor. Like I see aqua. I use gardening like acquisitions, hunting, retentions, farming. Like farming you're not going to feed yourself right away, but it's going to be a hell of a lot more efficient when that farm gets going than it is to go out and like hunt and gather berries. And the other analogy I use is like starting with acquisition when you first get into ecom is like stacking cans on top of, of one another. Like, if I start stacking cans one on top of the other, you're gonna look at my tower and go, wow, that's getting really tall really quick. And I'm like, yeah, like I'm doing so well. And you guys are over there building like a really solid foundation. You're a little bit slower out of the gate, but we're gonna get to a point where I put one more can on and my whole tower falls down. And you guys are going to have a solid foundation where you can keep building. And that one can on the top is like, okay, I have spent all the way up to like what I make on a purchase. So like, if I put one more dollar into acquisition like I'm actually losing money unless I can get that person to come back and make a second purchase. Like I'm stuck until I figure that out.

Yeah, that's right. One, one other thing what it's. I think it's important is that the market doesn't still have benchmarks so that they can see if they are doing the right job or not. And they, they can't even be aware if if what they are doing and all their let's say marketing, onboarding activities and so on are good enough compared to other to other players. And that's why we got a lot of let's say insights by analyzing the data like you've done with the refunds and returns. We've analyzed data from 1,500 e commerce companies and we looked at what should be the average days between the transactions. If you are selling, I don't know, cosmetics and having those type of benchmarks I think are going to use the is going to use to help the market become aware about the importance and where they should be. However, in the process there are thousands of companies which are dying or are not fulfilling their potential because of using a broken system. And I think what you're helping with your solution and your approach is to help companies have a systematic approach on E commerce growth is like an operating system which should be fixed and they are who's not doing that? They are actually going into the market with a prototype which is using I don't know all sorts of stitches and scotch tapes and whatever to and they keep on pouring gasoline into a machine which is not validated yet.

Yep. 100 I use a very similar, similar analogy. It's like oh I have this machine that I put wood into and it makes me toothpicks and it's like I put a giant redwood tree in and it gives me a toothpick. You're. You shouldn't say okay, how do I get two toothpicks? Is not go get another tree and put it in this machine to get a second toothpick. It's like what's going on in the midd that's going to be make me more efficient with what I'm doing there. And I love what you guys are doing with the benchmarks too because there's, there's not enough, there's not enough information out there on like how should I stack up on the retention side of things and like even if you look inside of Shopify like the Shopify dashboards like how many of the metrics and like the insight that I get in Shopify is retention oriented versus acquisition oriented. Like, I think there's. Your returning customer rate is probably like the only metric you can grab directly from Shopify to look at any of this.

We know, we know.

That's why you guys exist.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. You're right. I think just like another dimension to what you said. I think a lot of people are playing not to lose instead of playing to win because it's some sort of fear that, you know, if you don't produce every month, you're not, I guess, you know, it's, it's, it's. As you said, it's an adrenaline shot. It's like ecstasy, you know, it's like gambling. You get it. You need that quick win. And I think the mentality of the quick win is what's more, what's the most, you know, wrong about our space in, in general. And talking about that, I want to ask you what something positive and something not so positive. So I'm going to start with the positive because I'm so such a positive person in general. I'm not. So I wanted to, to ask you this. Besides returns and exchanges, what do you think are some. That's John. Yeah. John, stop asking questions when I'm live, man, because you're distracting me. I have to edit this now. Okay. So I wanted to, I wanted to ask you this. So what, what are the layers of customer experience besides the one that you guys are in right now, you think are overlooked and you know, and missed from the whole picture?

Yeah. So, I mean, beyond returns and exchanges, I think that it's, it's everything on the other side of like off the website. Like, I feel like everyone from a customer experience standpoint, like, they've really figured out the experience that they're creating on the website and we're seeing a few more people figure out like, okay, the unboxing, experiencing and like packaging I think has become like something that has a little bit more of the spotlight on it. I think the bigger piece that people miss is like your product itself. Like, the product is such a big piece of customer experience and a big piece of retention that I feel a lot of people miss. Like, I think retention, I think like loyalty programs, email marketing, sms, there's a lot of things in here with retention that I can like act on, but your product plays like a big part in that as well. Think about what you sell. Is there like an additional product that you can layer into that? How can you change your product so like, if you're selling bottles of shampoo, like, different sizes of bottles have like a huge impact on your retention. So I'd say the layer of the customer experience is like the actual physical product itself gets overlooked in favor of like the virtual experience of the website.

Yeah, I think that's valid. And I think this is one of the reasons why Valentin, you know, ripped himself from the herd back in 2018. Because I don't know if you know, but we actually come from the conversion rate optimization space. And I might piss some people off by saying this, but this is what it is when we. I mean, you can, you can, you know, you can do whatever you can on the website. Dual point. If what happens post purchase doesn't match what you're promising on the website through whatever, you know, hypothesis and heuristics and whatever, it's zero. Because if you need the repeat revenue, in this case, I'm talking about revenue, repeat revenue from the same source consistently. If you don't have that, you don't have a sustainable business. And what's shocking to me is that a lot of brands don't really care about that because they are just living with the impression, like, look, I just acquired 1,000 people this month. I'm Gucci. And then I'm asking them, okay, okay, but did you take out the acquisition cost out of this? You know, the revenue did this month. And we're like, yeah, I mean, we spend so, so little on ads. And then I told them, yeah, but what about the, you know, the tools? What about the overhead? What about the salaries? And everyone is like, gasp. And, you know, crickets. And you don't hear nothing. And I think it's backwards. So I was in a. I want to ask you something. You know, probably what's happening right now with Facebook and iOS and the ridiculous huge CPM costs. I was actually speaking about this, so I wanted to ask you. I heard this. This, you know, not even theories, but the future of what's going to happen with people basically losing their own website funnel to Facebook or Instagram or whatever, because, you know, we're gonna enter this era when all the giants are gonna basically go into shoppable content. So the whole data that you might usually get from a website might disappear because you don't have a funnel anymore. So everyone is going to start the bidding game. So it's going to be like, how much do you want this sale? Cool, I will give it to you on Facebook. I'll give it to you. But how much are you willing to Pay for it. So the brand is not going to have the control anymore what happens on their funnel. So what do you think brands should do right now, given that this is imminent? It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's sure as hell going to happen in the next month.

Yeah, build your audience. You can't rely on someone else. Like find the people that you need, especially now, because things are going to get a lot more expensive and actually like the level of data you have access to as we move, like move forward is going to become less and less. So I really am a big believer in web. Smith has this theory of like linear commerce and it's basically that like media and like products are just going to like merge into one thing thing. And I think that ecom brands should really be paying attention to that because like this is becoming. The audience part is becoming harder and the having a product and having like an E Comm site is getting easier. So think about all the people who have audiences right now, like those influencers that you're using to help you market. What's stopping them from getting into the game themselves? Because they have the eyeballs. And as the eyeballs become like more expensive and harder to get, they already have the more valuable resource and they're going to be able to launch a product like that. So my biggest piece of advice for brands would be like, think about content, think about community. Think about these ways where you can get people to engage with you with more than just what you're selling. And like content marketing has been a huge thing in B2B SaaS for like years. But like almost no E Com brands are getting into the content game. And when I say content, like, I'm not talking about like, you need a blog. Like I'm even talking like organic social media. Like have a YouTube channel, have an Instagram presence. Just have something where people are going to be around you naturally where you don't need to be paying for these eyeballs because like you said, it's going to get more expensive and there's going to be, it's going to be harder to target to what you want. Like right now it's so easy. And so, I mean, I shouldn't say right now, a few years ago, so easy and so cheap to get like the right type of person on your site. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. But like that's not the case anymore.

Yeah, and it's going to become worse and worse. And I mean it's. It was supposed to, you know, to happen And I guess the people that won't be able to adapt to what's happening or understand or believe what's happening because, you know, for various reasons, I always say this is kind of we're going to experience a very big thinning of the herd when it comes to brands, but also when it comes to agencies and service providers and, you know, everyone basically in our scene. So I definitely think we're living very interesting times. I also. I'm sorry, Valentino, one more question and then I promise. I wanted to also ask you something because John here made me laugh. I'm not gonna. I mean, I could actually say that John said to get him into trouble, he said this Shopify that these people haven't purchased in a while, so you should probably send them a coupon code. There you go, John. No, I wanted to, I wanted to ask you a legit question. John is also, also talking about this company journey versus customer journey. And basically what he says and I really like was one of the things that he said that I really like. And I asked this to a lot of people. What do you think is the biggest difference? If you are aware of the concept, like, what does the company want and what actually the customer wants? So what you think are the biggest differences between the company journey and the customer journey?

Yeah. So, John, I'm sorry I haven't read into the complete theory, but I have the gist of it. And I think the biggest disconnect, like what John said in the, in the chat here is like, hey, someone hasn't bought in a while, let's send them a coupon code is like, you, the brand are looking for a sale. They, the customer are looking for could be any number of things. I'm looking for a solution to a problem. I'm looking for, like, to, I don't know, I'm buying supplements because I want.

To get in shape.

I'm buying hair oils because I want my hair to grow longer. Like, there's all these things, different ways that the customer is looking to achieve something. And if you, the brand, aren't in tune with what they're looking to do, you're just going to continue to bombard them with like, sorry, stupid offers to try to get them to come back. And like, people think they work because at volume it does. If I send out a hundred thousand coupon codes, yeah, I'm going to generate a couple sales because people are just like, I just got in front of someone at the right time and they came there. So the thing I like to say Is like, imagine you're selling jewelry and instead of saying like, hey, here's 50% off, like your next purchase, it's like, say you're selling, you're selling silver. I know silver starts to tarnish around this time. Like, hey, here's the cleaning supplies, here's the cleaning cloths. And like, work the product offers and like, what you're offering to people into the journey that they're on. Because if you don't, you're just blindly throwing coupon codes around. And like, yeah, they might work every once in a while, but it's a volume game. And like, the volume game isn't going to work for that much longer.

It definitely won't.

Alex, I think your approach is, let's say, opening a new horizon on our conversation. So from your perspective, you've seen a lot of brands handling returns differently. What would be the main things that you would recommend to companies willing to nail this? Because the outcomes would be, A, you will get less friction and less people handling returns and so on. B, you will have more satisfied customers which will be willing to come back and buy again from you. But how would you do this? Let's say you're suddenly one of those influencers that have a lot of eyeballs and you are, let's say, launching your product. How would you do this?

Yeah, I think what it boils down to is what we've already been talking about is taking a customer centric approach to your returns. So we talked a bit at the beginning here about like, burying and hiding it. Pull it out. Some of the best brands that we're seeing, they don't just have it in the footer, they'll have a banner. Because like, your returns, your return and exchange policy can have a huge influence on your conversion rates too. Think about, like people, they have never bought from you before and like, they're evaluating how risky is this purchase. If you say, I have 90 days to decide and hey, if you want to exchange this, it's free. It reduce that perceived risk and actually makes them more likely to buy. So I would say get your return policy out of the footer. Don't bury it. Make sure people can see it. Number two would be like, on the policy itself. Don't make this look like something you need to get your lawyer to come check out before you make a purchase. Make it, make it super easy. And I always say there's basically like five things that people are looking for. It's how much is this return going to cost me? Make sure that that is up on your return policy page because people want to know and I can get into some tactics on like where you should charge return shipping and where you shouldn't. How long do I have? So what's the return window? What can't I return? So if something's final sale or an ineligible for return, what are those? How long will it take? So like reducing that perceived risk again is if I need an exchange, how long till the next product is going to be at my door? Or if I'm getting a refund issued, how long until I'm going to see that charge refunded to my credit card? And where do I actually start the return? Like where do I go to start the return? So obviously if you use something like Loop it's like hey, here's the button to get started. But if you're not going to use something like that, but I highly recommend you choose something to make this a more on demand experience. What email address do I use? What's the phone number? Where do I actually get this started?

I think people should definitely use Loop and I don't work for them but I think they definitely should use your software. Actually seen it in action and I think it's like a no brainer. It's so easy and you know, that's why I wanted to have you here because then thank you for this. I'm going to make sure this is going to go on our episode notes. I think a lot of people should focus on this aspect of the customer, customer experience in this aspect of the customer journey. And I think this is something again that can increase the customer lifetime value. Because this is, you know, Valentin and mine's favorite topic. But yeah, I think, I think this is something that it's highly overlooked. I think it mixes very well with customer support in my opinion. And this is an added value that the customer support can come with when you have someone that's like, you know, I want to return, I want a refund, I want to get this back. This doesn't fit me. So it's a great upsell technique as well. So yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing this. My last question to you before we wrap up is tell me one thing that you hate and one thing that you love about E Commerce.

One thing that I hate about E Commerce. I, I think we've covered it like through this entire episode is just this. If I hear one more person start a conversation with me with like Roaz, I. I'm. It's driving me nuts.

Would you say it's a vanity metric.

I'll.

I'll leave that for. For you two to to decide on that. But if every single conversation I have with people like it always just it somehow railroads to talking about that one thing I love about E Commerce. I ev. Like I know this is a cop out answer but like pretty much everything else like that it's. It's an industry where we're all learning together as we go. Like it's so new. It's growing so fast, especially over the last year. Like we've all been thrown into some situations that like we never would have expected and being able to learn and grow alongside that and just like the community of it all. Like I know some of the brands we work with are listening in right now and just the connections and the relationships that like myself personally and Loop's been able to make with some with the brands out there has been the thing I love the most about E commerce. So to sum that up in one word, community. The community of E commerce is unbelievable.

I agree. I agree. And actually I got friends with brands and with people after I've been in your podcast with because guys, Alex has a podcast, it's called the Exchange with which he's doing with Tim Busa because his last name is easy and like.

Yours, easier to say. Yeah, yeah.

And you guys should definitely check the Exchange out. It's a very, very good podcast and they have great guests and yeah, I got friends with a lot of people. So for the brands that are listening to Alex today, please check Reveal on the App Store on Shopify if you don't use it yet. Look, John is going on on Ros. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming today and for having this conversation with us. I'm. I want to ask you where can our audience find you so I can add this in our episode notes?

Yeah, I mean the best place to follow along with what we're up to is the Exchange, our podcast pretty active on LinkedIn. So if anyone wants to follow me on LinkedIn, good luck spelling my last name but Alex Loop and you'll find it or I'm sure we'll get the link into the show notes. But yeah, LinkedIn's the best place to engage with me the podcast. We also have a blog through Loop, so we're releasing weekly content on basically some of the more detailed tips and tricks of what you should do with your return policy.

Awesome. Well, I dropped the link here for the people that are watching right now live and for the the other ones, check the episode notes thank you, thank you. This was a great conversation to have. I agree with you if I speak about acquisitions one more time is what it is. So thank you so much for being here. This was fun, which I hope this podcast to be. It is for everyone that's listening. And yeah, I'll see you around. Thank you so much for coming.

Thanks for having me.

Alex.

This podcast was brought to you by Vitex. VTex is the first and only fully integrated e commerce marketplace and OMS solution that offers fastest time to revenue and no upgrades ever. So go ahead, check them out. Vtex.com.