Hello and welcome to October: In Review
With yet another month this year drawing to a close, we’re ready to showcase another round-up of the latest and greatest retail- and wholesale-focused articles, reports and videos to hit the web. This month, we’ve got various insights on returns and serial returners, as well as some essential reading ahead of the holiday season.
1. Report: Banned? A Returning Problem
Serial returners are a growing problem and are damaging already tight margins.
With Amazon’s recent decision to ban customers who return too much, we wanted to know whether this is a strategy other retailers might adopt and will shoppers accept or even support the possibility of being ‘banned’ for returning too many items.
Our latest special report deep dives into this high-profile issue and the consequences it might have on the retail sector at large. You can get it here!
The report will help you to:
- Gain insight into the alarming rise of serial returners and the predicted impact on retailers’ margins
- Understand attitudes towards potential ‘serial returner bans’, how this might impact on the consumer-brand relationship and influence shopping habits
- Obtain comprehensive views from retailers, industry experts and self-proclaimed serial returners on whether ‘bans’ are the most effective solution for chronic returners
- Understand the lighter touch alternatives to lifetime bans that shoppers are in favor of and which may help protect relationships with customers
- Gain insight into the technologies that can help retailers better prepare for and make informed decisions on tackling the growing serial returner problem
2. Articles: Holiday Season Planning
The holiday season is on the horizon for another year, which means you’re likely already deep into your planning for it.
But just in case you’ve been dragging your feet or are looking for some last-minute tips, we’ve scouted out some of the best resources from the web that were published this month:
- BigCommerce: How to Write and Promote a Return Policy Customers Love [Examples Inside]
- Shopify Plus: Holiday Marketing Ecommerce Planning: +50 Brands With Over $10M/Year in Revenue Reveal Their Strategies
- We Make Websites: Optimize Your Holiday Readiness: 12 Ecommerce Basics To Boost Your Sales This Holiday Season
- Nosto: Ace Your Holiday Marketing Strategy: Access Nosto’s Holiday Favorites Today
3. Video: Fairfax & Favor Customer Story
Another month, another fantastic customer story!
We’ve recently had the pleasure of visiting one of our customers, Fairfax & Favor, to find out how they’ve been able to give warehousing inefficiency the boot with Brightpearl.
Fairfax & Favor are a British fashion brand selling luxury leather goods across the UK and internationally, and they had some great insights for us on the day, which you can see and hear first-hand in this Youtube video:
We particularly loved hearing how their dispatch process has been made 100 times easier, while the time spent on their inventory counts has been halved!
For those of you who prefer reading, we’ve also published a written copy of their customer story on our website with everything they told us on the day. You can read it here.
4. Thought Leadership: Think Twice Before Returning That Online Purchase — Retailers Are Ready To Ban You From Shopping Again
We’re pleased (and proud) to say that our special returns report mentioned above was the centerpiece in a recent Forbes article.
In the article, Forbes pulled out a few key insights from the report to back up what some retailers have already told them and other journalists.
It makes for interesting reading, so be sure to take ten minutes on your next break to have a look at it.
5. Partner Spotlight: Power Up Plus — 6 Technologies to Enhance Your Shopify Plus Store
Choosing the ‘dream team’ of ecommerce tech stacks and strategies for your webstore can be an overwhelming task…
So, we’ve partnered up with a number of ecommerce experts on a brand new content series to help you do just that.
With insights from Nosto, Bronto, Yotpo, Klevu, Smile.io, and us, we’re bringing you first-hand knowledge on how to power up your webstore to increase your conversion rate and performance.
Across six chapters, you’ll learn:
- How to deliver unique data-driven customer experiences
- Why Automation is the key to lifecycle marketing
- How to harness the power of User Generated Content (UGC)
- How reward programs can help boost brand advocacy
- How to achieve a better search experience on your website
- Why ERP and back office systems can be a powerful addition to your business
A new chapter will be unlocked every two weeks. The first three chapters are available now — just fill in a few details here and you’ll get alerted each time a new chapter is published.
6. Event Follow-Up: The Returns Battlefield
We recently hosted an event called ‘The Returns Battlefield’ in London, which was a glitzy affair that explored the growing issue of returns.
We were joined by several retail experts, including speakers from Oliver Sweeney and In the Style, who regaled the audience with strategies, real-life examples and anecdotes on how to successfully traverse the returns battlefield.
But don’t worry about those FOMO feelings. For those of you who couldn’t make the event, we’ve recapped some of the key insights from the event in this blog post.
And with that, our October round-up has come to a close. Keep an eye on the blog for our next round-up, which will be published towards the end of November.
