SIGNED → SEALED → DELIVERED
Patients are consumers too. With ever-evolving expectations and higher stakes than typical deliveries, join us as we walk through…
• What patients expect
• How you can meet and exceed patient expectations
• How brands like CVS, Allheart, and Humana have mastered post-purchase
Split shipments (when a multi-product order is delivered in more than one package) are becoming more common, increasing by as much as 27% since the start of the pandemic. While part of the surge in split shipments can be attributed to significant increases in ecommerce transactions since 2020, there are other factors at play.
We’ll walk through the four main factors driving the uptick in split shipments, and your kit to overcome any split shipment hurdles in your way.
Narvar is now integrated with Klaviyo!
We’ll walk through how you can use this partnership to drive increased LTV for your customers by:
• Enriching customer profiles with post-purchase shipment events
• Powering marketing campaigns with shipment-related activity
• Timing post-purchase follow-ups for peak accuracy and engagement
Showing an estimated delivery date on a PDP or at checkout doesn’t just set clear expectations on the delivery date — it also powers conversion.
Retailers doing it well aren’t just showing a pre-purchase EDD – they’re doing even more. In this episode, we’ll break down:
• How to drive purchase urgency with estimated delivery dates
• Why showing multiple service methods is key to exceeding customer expectations
• What brands using pre-purchase EDDs today are seeing conversion rates double
To increase efficiency and boost revenue, Orvis added a free-shipping promotion to their return confirmation emails (Orvis’ alternative to an exchange program).
Consequently, Orvis customers felt the online returns experience became more convenient. As a result, Orvis saw a 124% lift in post-return orders (netting $185,000 in recaptured revenue), and 42% fewer WISMR inquiries to their call center.
Check out this episode where we break down the steps Orvis took to make this happen!
Exceptions cost retailers millions each year. Last mile delivery management tools can mean the difference between “return to sender,” a successful delivery, and a happy customer.
In this episode, we’ll talk through three ways to reduce exceptions up to 50% in the delivery journey while adding in customer conveniences that ensure delivery success.
Customers expect returns to be free and easy and brands want to provide a seamless post-purchase experience. The problem is, returns are expensive and are impacting your bottom line.
Let’s talk about returns, how much they cost, and how to reduce costs along the journey:
• Realizing the cost of returns
• How returns impact your bottom-line
• How to reduce costs in post-purchase
Jay Gittens (00:00):
Hey, my name is Jay, and I'm a Product Marketing Manager here at Narvar. This is Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, and today we'll be talking about finding the hidden cost of returns…but before we can do that, we’ve got to answer an important question first: Why do returns matter?
Customers today expect return policies that make it easy for them to buy from their favorite brands and return products with little to no hassle. Meeting that expectation is critical as it leads to stronger retention and higher lifetime value. In fact, 80% of customers will buy from a retailer again and again if the returns process is easy.
That’s why it’s always in a retailer's best interest to maintain a return policy that’s easy to understand and even easier to adhere to.
Jay Gittens (00:52):
Unfortunately, the easiest return policies come with steep costs—especially when you consider anywhere from 20% to 30% of all online orders are returned. Yet the rising cost of returns is often overlooked as retailers over index on acquisition and growth at the expense of profitability.
Consider the cost of returning a $50 product by mail, assuming you cover the cost of the return for the customer. Between postage, transportation, processing, restocking, and reselling (typically at a discount) you’re losing about 60% of that product’s value just to get it back from the customer.
Jay Gittens (01:46):
Another factor you need to consider in your returns calculus is the cost of selling the product in the first place. If a shopper is ultimately going to return a purchase, their initial acquisition cost should be added into the cost of the overall return.
(Never mind that you don’t even know if your returned inventory is resellable—or how long it will take to get it into a sellable state—until you get it back in house. If it can’t be resold, you’ve paid for the return shipping only to take a full writedown on the value of the item.)
So, here's what the equation for a return looks like…
You take your total revenue and subtract 20% of that number (to account for a 20% return rate). Then subtract the cost of acquisition, shipping/logistics, and restocking/reselling.
The number that you’re left with?—That’s the real cost of returns to your business.
Jay Gittens (02:23):
When you look at your final number, it can feel a bit depressing, but there’s good news—I can show you how you can turn your returns process into a competitive advantage that offsets some of that expense. In fact, I can show you how you can retain more revenue and save the sale more often.
Jay Gittens (03:03):
The first thing you need to do is start leveraging local pickup and drop-off points to consolidate your returns costs and get products back faster (which allows for more effective resale).
The next thing you need to do is start customizing your return policies for different customer segments, as doing so makes shoppers more comfortable with the policies you offer while allowing you to mitigate expenses.
The third and final thing you need to do is get better at controlling your costs by using more return automations that save time and money.
Jay Gittens (03:40):
For the first item—leveraging local pickup and drop-off networks—you can drive additional conversion using existing checkout flows. You can also leverage a national network without needing to expand your brick and mortar footprint.
This allows you to get your product back faster for resale so it's not just stagnant inventory in a warehouse, or sitting in a customer’s closet waiting to be returned.
Jay Gittens (04:20):
Return policies and rules are a huge competitive advantage that can set your brand apart from the competition—remember that 80% of customers shop with brands that have a really easy returns experience. So, a great policy creates a strong, positive experience for your customers which leads to intense loyalty.
Customize your return policies and help protect your profitability against losses due to fraud with the different returns customizations, VIP experiences, and rules that allow you to deliver the right returns experience to the right audience at the right time.
Jay Gittens (04:57):
And finally, you can also just control costs.
So, embracing consolidation to avoid waste and saving money definitely helps, one, improve your efficiency and your cost savings, but also improves sustainability, which a lot of customers are looking for now, as well.
You can help control costs by capitalizing on data to eliminate efficiencies across your supply chain, both with logistics, getting products to your customers, and reverse logistics, getting products back and returned again into a resellable state.
And finally, you can process more efficiently with standardization and outsourcing across the board by leveraging, again, things like pickup and drop off networks, home pickup, which are all things that can be leveraged currently right now to set your business apart, offer convenience, and also, again, consolidate those costs so that you're saving as much money as possible.
Maximized inventory. Recovered revenue. Cost savings and operational efficiencies.
Top logistics and fulfillment organizations hone in on these areas of opportunity within post-purchase to move the needle on their businesses.
Listen in on this episode where we cover these three areas top-performing logistics and fulfillment operations focus on that add to the bottom-line.
Marketing spent thousands in getting shoppers to your site. You invest thousands in getting them to convert. And now what?
Industry-leading ecommerce teams like On Running, Rothy’s, and Orvis know what levers to pull to drive operational efficiencies and increase revenue without sacrificing on the customer experience.
Tune in as we divulge on the areas these brands focus on to create lasting bottom-line impact.
Customer Care and Customer Experience teams are the front-lines of any retail organization.
In this episode, we’ll focus on where and how these teams can create cost-savings, reduce WISMO, and drive customer loyalty.
Short on time? Get keyed into how WISMO is undermining your ecommerce success and our steps to remedy.
Claire Johnson (00:21)
Today we’re focusing on customer care’s seat at the post-purchase table, something that’s critical to informing and optimizing the rest of your post-purchase program.
First of all, your customer care team is your first line of defense when it comes to handling customers and triaging issues. That means they’re adept at uncovering “golden nuggets” you can use to improve your post-purchase experience…
…And one of the things your customer service team has no doubt identified is that "Where is my order?" (WISMO) inquiries are a top driver for your call center.
These types of questions are a way for you to unlock insights and better understand what your customers are looking for and what are the problems they’re experiencing, so you can make more informed decisions about post-purchase and the gaps that need to be closed.
Claire Johnson (02:17)
As an example of how effective this can be, you should consider the following two brands—On Running and Sephora.
The first, On Running, is a footwear brand with a strong direct-to-consumer channel and a wholesale channel. As a brand, they’re committed to giving their customers complete confidence across the purchase, order tracking, and returns experiences. They instill this confidence by setting strong pre-purchase expectations so customers don’t feel like they need to pick up the phone after an order is placed.
Claire Johnson (02:58)
Using a series of estimated delivery dates (EDDs) displayed on all product detail pages (PDPs), across the checkout flow, and on the order confirmation page, On Running is providing customers with a clear view into when they can expect their package.
Claire Johnson (03:44)
These EDDs are powered by a blend of Navar-specific logic and fulfillment logic to show an incredibly accurate delivery date and set the right expectation with customers so they don't feel the need to pick up the phone wondering where their order might be or when they can even expect to get that package.
Claire Johnson (04:08)
Sephora is another brand that does a phenomenal job of keeping customers in lockstep during the fulfillment and delivery journeys.
During the supply chain chaos of 2020 and 2021, Sephora encountered a number of fulfillment issues. To keep customers in the loop and out of the dark, they utilized Narvar's notification solution to send time-based communications to customers during the fulfillment process to let them know if there's going to be a fulfillment delay or just the status of their order as it's being fulfilled. These messages reduced WISMO and saved Sephora’s customer support team hundreds of hours of work.
Claire Johnson (05:06)
Letting shoppers know that an item is packed → shipped → leaving the warehouse → on the truck → arriving tomorrow → at the front door is critical to reducing the amount of calls coming to the call center. This creates a really positive and impactful customer experience downstream that makes a shopper want to come back and make a repeat purchase.
Claire Johnson (05:35)
Another element of customer care and customer care operations is how we can help you save time and how in post-purchase you can find more hours in the day to do more impactful things that save time and save money.
When it comes to solving customer issues in post-purchase—especially around order location—one of the biggest challenges is it requires tapping into multiple disparate systems (a warehouse management system, an order management system, a carrier system, etc.) to get a clear picture of what’s going on.
Claire Johnson (06:46)
Working with a platform like Narvar eliminates that complication.
When order issues come in, customer service reps can pull all the necessary order and shipment related information directly to solve the customer inquiry with incredible speed and precision. This, of course, reduces handling and resolution times, which improves operational efficiency.
This specific screenshot that you're seeing is through a partnership between Narva and Zendesk that our retailers will utilize to solve order issues as they arise, and customers can actually file their tickets directly from our Narvar track page and then all of this information would be surfaced directly to customer care agents, so we can really help streamline those operations.
Claire Johnson (07:25)
If you have any questions or would like to learn more or would like to have one of us just have a conversation with you to understand where you are in your post-purchase program, we absolutely can do that. So feel free to request a demo and one of us will get in touch with you.
Post-purchase matters now more than ever.
When done right, it creates lifelong customers and generates operational cost and time savings. In this episode, we’ll talk through:
• What post-purchase is
• How brands that do it well see immediate results
• How you can get started
Don’t have time to tune in? Check out our explainer guide for all things post-purchase.
Claire Johnson (00:44)
Today we’re going to answer a few questions:
In answering those questions, we’re going to leave you with some valuable takeaways including what type of ROI does post-purchase deliver, and what can you do right now to drive revenue, improve efficiency, and boost your brand loyalty.
We're also going to leave you with a few resources that will help you learn more if you're interested—so with that, let’s dive into it.
Claire Johnson (01:27)
The rise of D2C brands made it incredibly easy for ecommerce to occur—anyone can stand up a digital storefront on Etsy, on Shopify, or any of the ecommerce platforms out there in a matter of minutes. But as with any increase in accessibility, there’s also been a surge in competition, which means how you differentiate yourself as an online seller is the key to brand loyalty and profitability.
According to a McKinsey study 40% of shoppers tried a new brand in the last year. To that end, post-purchase is a tool you can use to ensure those first-time shoppers become repeat buyers, lowering your need to spend on acquisition to foster revenue growth.
Claire Johnson (02:27)
And by that we mean the way that your customers remember you by providing:
When these actions are done well it can really keep your customers coming back.
Claire Johnson (02:59)
Post-purchase isn't just about the customer experience—it’s also about operations.
Common cost drivers such as WISMO (where is my order?) inquiries to call centers increase operational expenses year after year when left unaddressed, cannibalizing tens of thousands of dollars in revenue. (Never mind the fact that a customer who must ask “where is my order?” is a customer who’s suffering from a lackluster experience and is, therefore, less likely to buy again.)
Claire Johnson (03:47)
Bridging communication gaps related to your operations leads to a reduction in inquiries from customers which leads to an uptick in revenue for your brands. The retailers that we work with at Narvar see an average reduction of 50% in WISMO calls once they begin investing in their post-purchase experience.
Claire Johnson (04:11)
Returns are also a cost center many retailers are struggling to address. Fortunately, brands can lessen the impact on their bottom line by streamlining their reverse logistics processes. That means getting better at enforcing eligibility rules, activating automation, limiting packaging and postage, and cutting down on the back-and-forth customer service communication required to submit and process a return.
Claire Johnson (04:46)
Ask yourself how you can facilitate easy exchanges that allow you to keep customer’s share of wallet?
How can you offer conveniences that reduce friction in the returns process?
Can you provide something like printerless returns that eliminate just enough of that “return discomfort” that people want to make a second and third purchase in the future?
How can you make it so that you reduce debt inventory time and get products back to the right place at the right time using the right distribution node, so that they can get back on the shelf and resold faster?
Claire Johnson (05:27)
At Narvar, we work with many retailers who are optimizing their returns flow to different warehouses, stores, and distribution nodes to lessen the amount of time their products spend in-transit. Doing so is helping these retailers reduce carrier costs and get products back faster so they can be resold at a rapid rate. As you can imagine, doing this is benefiting their bottom line.
Claire Johnson (06:28)
So, who are the brands doing this well and what are some levers they pull?
Well, the biggest lever they pull involves setting—and controlling—customer expectations pre-purchase.
Claire Johnson (06:45)
For example, On Running is a D2C footwear brand that also operates a prominent wholesale channel as well. They pride themselves on instilling their customers with confidence—confidence when they make a purchase, confidence as they wait for an order to arrive, and confidence when a return needs to be made or a refund needs to be issued.
Claire Johnson (07:11)
From a pre-purchase perspective, On Running instills confidence by prominently displaying the most accurate estimated delivery dates possible and providing total transparency on costs related to the various shipping options. All of this helps drive site conversion and reduce cart abandonment rates.
Claire Johnson (08:11)
Additionally, when it comes to providing a luxurious, consistent, and transparent delivery tracking experience, Clarins (the prominent French beauty retailer) does a phenomenal job of brand extension. They do this through a series of communications that keep their customers in lockstep with their orders, letting them know when orders are fulfilled, shipped, delayed, and delivered. This brand extension is helping Clarins reduce WISMO and drive additional engagement that’s powering supplemental sales.
Claire Johnson (09:05)
A main mechanism driving this engagement for Clarins is a beautiful, branded, and bespoke order tracking page. It offers personalized recommendations and content that's unique to that specific customer (which makes them want to revisit Clarins' website and make repeat purchases).
Clarins is seeing a 300% increase in site conversion rates from post-purchase traffic—an incredible figure. Anyone coming through these order tracking communications (or through a dedicated tracking page) has a higher propensity to convert than other types of traffic.
Claire Johnson (09:43)
But most importantly, each tracking page that Clarins uses acts as a real-time mechanism for customers to get the insights they need into when they can expect their package to arrive.
So, Clarins is just a really great example of how you can get up and running with post-purchase quickly and in a way that has immediate financial impact.
Claire Johnson (10:05)
Finally, Orvis is doing a phenomenal job of facilitating a smooth and seamless returns experience for their customers, while driving operational efficiencies related to reverse logistics.
They are accomplishing all through the provision of a beautiful, branded returns portal that makes it easy for customers to see which products are eligible for return, what return methods are available (printerless, drop-off, home pickup, etc.), how long their return will take to process, and what options they have in the way of receiving a refund (original payment method, gift card, etc.). The eligibility piece is really crucial as it guarantees final sale or out-of-policy items can’t be returned.
Claire Johnson (11:06)
In addition to all this, Orvis provides accurate, real-time communications that keep customers in lockstep with their returns—from the moment a return is dropped off at a carrier, to the moment it arrives at a warehouse, to the moment the refund is issued. This way, the customer is never “out of the loop” when it comes to their return or their refund.
All of this is combining to give customers a really exceptional return experience that’s leading to an uptick in sales—the customers who return an item now repurchase with a higher propensity than they did before Narvar, lifting new orders following a return by 124%.
Claire Johnson (11:51)
The best part of the Orvis story lies in revenue recapture.
By enforcing eligibility and offering seamless exchanges, Orvis recovered $185,000 in revenue and reduced WISMR (where is my refund?) inquiries to their call center by 42%.
Claire Johnson (12:32)
In closing, I want to leave you with some resources in the event you want to learn a little bit more.
We have a ton of material on our blog which you can access here, as well as great ebooks and webinars.
And then if you'd also like a consultation as well with one of our post-purchase experts, we are more than happy to do that, to have a conversation with you, see where you're at, and even just make some recommendations for up-leveling your post-purchase based on whatever your goals might be.
