Marine Layer gets a beautiful return on their investment.

It was only 10 years ago that Marine Layer was just a San Francisco pop-up. Today the apparel company has 40 brick-and-mortar locations across the United States and a strong online shopping experience. Plus the company hosts multiple Airbnb spaces to immerse consumers in the brand. Marine Layer’s success can be credited to its “absurdly soft” clothes, strong commitment to detail, and seamless customer experience.

As with any apparel company, a major part of a positive customer experience comes down to a streamlined returns and exchange process. For Marine Layer, it was evident their process needed improvement, which led them to Narvar.

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Discovering product improvements through user feedback

Despite Marine Layer’s very liberal returns policy, the company’s process for returns was creating headaches. “The pain points with our old technology partner were frustrating our consumers and, as a result, didn’t provide any real relief for our CS team,” says Renee Halvorsen, Senior Director Marketing & Ecommerce.

This frustration led Marine Layer to switch to Narvar for a more engaging and efficient post-purchase customer experience, which provided an added benefit. “Narvar provides a more streamlined experience for our customers and our CS team than our previous vendor,” says Halvorsen.

“Thanks to Narvar, our return rate has been decreasing and we’re recapturing more of that revenue. We’re able to create the premium return and exchange experience we want for our customers by giving them more intelligent choices with the maximum amount of options.”

Renee Halvorsen
Senior Director Marketing & Ecommerce

Turning returns into exchanges and recouped revenue

Since 40% of their customers track return packages through Narvar, Marine Layer customizes its return tracking page by including product recommendations that are based on customer behavior. As a result, Marine Layer is experiencing a 29% click-through rate from its return tracking page to the company website.

Focusing on creating a premium experience and turning returns into repurchases also boosted exchanges for Marine Layer. Instead of having to process a return and then search for a replacement item, Marine Layer’s customers are automatically offered available inventory to make an even exchange on the spot through Narvar. The new order is seamlessly created in the same session as the return, providing Marine Layer customers full transparency and convenience.

By eliminating a manual exchange process, Marine Layer is not only improving the overall customer post-purchase experience, but it’s also avoiding lost revenue from returns. In only two months, 14 percent of online returns became exchanges instead.

“Thanks to Narvar, we’re able to create the premium return and exchange experience we want for our customers by giving them more intelligent choices with the maximum amount of options,” Halvorsen said.