We’ve written about the enormous cost and environmental harm that result from excessive returns. Charging for returns or tightening return policies is great, but it’s not happening widely enough or quickly enough to address the problem.

So, we decided that we’re going to do something about it. We’re excited to announce the latest expansion of our circularity platform – a seamless solution for reselling returns.

Historically, brands only had two options for dealing with returns. First, they could sell them for pennies on the dollar to a liquidator (most of those products are shipped to be resold in developing countries, and most eventually end up in landfills). Second, they could destroy or discard them (2.6 million tons of returned clothes ended up in landfills in the US in 2020!). Both options result in huge financial losses and catastrophic environmental harm.

But resale doesn’t! Reselling returns as pre-loved allows brands to recover more of the original cost of the product – far more than liquidation. Reselling returns also ensures that they stay in use longer, which keeps them out of landfills, deserts, or waterways.

Reselling returns using our circularity platform is easy. Returns are automatically imported from Shopify into our platform where they can be inspected and sorted. Items that qualify for resale can be sent to be cleaned and/or repaired (all of which is tracked in our platform) before being listed on the brand’s own pre-loved store, which we host. Orders are automatically posted to Shopify for fulfillment (they could also be fulfilled through our platform using our carbon-neutral shipping option). Reports keep track of sales and inventory balances all in one place. Easy!

Our returns solution is specifically designed to be automated and easy to use because we want it to be something that brands of all sizes can adopt. By providing an alternative for brands to resell their returns instead of throwing them away or liquidation them, we hope to help take a meaningful step towards solving this problem. And by making it available on a commission-basis, we can be sure to also make it profitable for them.

Please visit our website to learn more about our returns solution. If you have questions, please contact us.