Dashboard: Loop Returns

Loop Returns helps merchants manage their return / exchange processes, helping manage the entire process from customer interactions to logistics. The Loop Returns dashboard gives you insight into your return process

Key Topics

Dashboard Description

Loop Returns is a Shopify platform that enables merchants to simplify the returns process and encourage customers to turn returns into exchanges by offering 4 ways to return: exchange, shop now, store credit or refund.  Loop Returns manages the exchange / return process, leading to a higher rate of exchanges and quicker cycle times to get returned inventory back in your warehouse.

DASHBOARD AVAILABILITY

This dashboard is ONLY available for merchants that have a Loop Returns integration.

Daasity Growth merchants can find this dashboard under Dashboards > Product & Inventory.

Daasity Professional merchants must contact their TAM or support@daasity.com to enable this integration and dashboard deployment.

THE IMPORTANCE OF RETURNS AND EXCHANGES

A streamlined and hassle-free return and exchange process is important for all direct to consumer companies, particularly those in the apparel industry where return and exchange rates can be very high.  A customer return or exchange should be viewed as another opportunity to interact with a customer and leave them with positive feelings about your brand.

With proper analysis, this dashboard can help answer the following questions:

  • Which products are being returned or exchanged at a high rate?  Why are they returning or exchanging these products and could this indicate a quality issue?
  • How long is it taking to process a return and receive the returned item?
  • What product are customers exchanging into?  Is it the same SKU in a different size or a completely different SKU?

The Loop Returns dashboard is split into the following sections:

 

Return Summary

 

Loop Returns Dashboard


The top section displays all of your top-level metrics in both dollar-amount and order numbers, that are important for the Loop integration. This includes your brand's: 

Gross Sales: the total amount charged to a customer less tax.

Refund Amount: the total amount that has been refunded to customers.

Credit Issued: the total amount of store credit that has been issued in lieu of refunds.

Shop Now: the total amount from the refund that was used to exchange.

Bonus: the total amount issued to customers who request an exchange rather than return.

Handling Fees: if applicable.

Gift Card: the delta outstanding between the credit issued and the credit used.

Below your summary metrics, you'll find a Return Curve and Status.

The Return Curve shows the average percent of orders returned over a period of time. This is helpful in forecasting to understand at what point, on average, you will have likely issued all returns and the velocity that they happen.  This can be used to help scale up customer support by predicting when your return volume will be heaviest after large sales days.

The Return Status shows the current state of returns and if they are Open or Closed. 

Return Processing Time

The next section has several views around the time it takes to receive and process returns. There are multiple measurements in return time. There is time from Open to Close, Time from Receipt to fully Processed. 

Loop Returns Dashboard - Return Processing Time

This will help you identify where there are areas for improvement, or where issues may be occurring, or conversely, improvements and optimizations taking effect. 

Product-Level Return Detail

This final section has detail around your product assortment and returns. We've mapped the return back to the original order so that we can perform analysis on product-level return rate.

 Loop Returns Dashboard - Return Detail

The first table you'll see, labeled A above, has product level return detail. Sort by best sellers or most returns to see which products have the highest or lowest return rate in your assortment. This, along with chart B to the right, can help easily identify the products with either the largest negative impact on your business, or the products that perform quite well, are not returned, and can be used as a model for future product development.

Chart C provides a visual depiction of the reasons for returns overall. If you wish to see greater detail on return reasons by product, just scroll down to the next table which contains a matrix of that information. Or, if you'd like to see the same output for a specific product, follow the instructions here.

HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION:

It's important to understand if specific products are being returned or exchanged often and the reasons they are returned.  Here are a few use cases to help guide your decision making if you see a product / set of products returned often:

  • Check the most cited reasons for returns.  If you see reasons containing quality concerns, you may want to stop sales of this product until you can troubleshoot.
  • If the product is often exchanged for another size, you may want to include comments on your site that this item tends to run large / small.
  • If many people exchange this product for a separate product (e.g., Product A is always exchanged for Product B), consider using Product B in place of Product A in advertisements.  You may also consider reaching out to some customers to better understand why they made the exchange and if Product B better suits their needs.

Return Reasons

The return reasons table gives you granular detail into the return reasons at the overall parent level and a more granular level.  As mentioned above, return reasons for each product can help guide decision making around merchandising and sourcing product and help guide your fulfillment process to ensure customers receive the items they ordered and they are in good condition.

Exchanges

The final section contains details for Exchange Orders. It contains pie charts around failed exchanges and overall return vs. exchange rate.

To the right, you'll see a visualization that shows the product that are being exchanged and what they are exchanged for. 

Loop Returns Dashboard - Exchanges

If you start to see patterns around size differences, perhaps messaging on your product pages about 'runs big' or 'runs small' may help improve your return and exchange rate.

 

Requirements

This dashboard requires that you have a Loop Returns integration installed in the Daasity app.

Reports

 

Related Resources