In 2023, Palladium Boots saw more than 65% of all their online returns in Canada returned as package- and label-free drop-offs to ReturnBear locations.

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Industry
‍Apparel & Footwear

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Savings
‍70% on return shipping costs 

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Platform
Shopify

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“The fact that customers can drop off their returns...and get their refund almost instantly has been a great boost to get first timers to the brand...Over Q4, we saw over half of our returns go through the drop-off locations! This saved us $$ as well since we were able to consolidate returns through ReturnBear"

— Manny Alamwala, Director of Ecommerce, Palladium Boots Canada

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Background

Palladium Boots is a French heritage footwear brand with its origins in WWII. For over 70 years, Palladium Boots has been making footprints in history as the trusted choice for explorers and trailblazers. From athletes to artists, battlefields to underground raves, Palladium Boots are designed to be worn by bold individuals who dare to carve their own path.

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With sales growing, Mint Green Group, the distributor for Palladium Boots in Canada, was looking for a partner to automate their return management needs, manage the end-to-end return process, lighten the load for their support team, and provide their customers with an easy and trustworthy return experience. 

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Challenge

The footwear industry has one of the highest online return rates. Online shoppers often buy shoes and boots in various sizes (a practice known as “bracketing”) to ensure they find the right fit. This results in a high volume of returns for brands, which is costly and eats into their margins.

For Palladium Boots Canada, the returns process was manual and required intervention across multiple teams - from customer support, ecommerce and finance to warehouse and operations staff. All returns were managed through email with manual return authorizations and shipping labels, which resulted in extra effort and delays for their support team and customers.

Palladium Boots Canada needed a solution to automate their return process, improve their response times, enhance the efficiency of their warehouse operations, and save them money on return shipping. 

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Solution 

Palladium Boots Canada was able to integrate ReturnBear’s end-to-end return solution within 2 days and get up and running quickly. This included a branded return portal to automate RMA (return authorization) requests,  as well as access to ReturnBear’s Canada-wide drop-off return network. ReturnBear took over the receipt, inspection, QA, processing and repacking of all of Palladium Boot Canada’s eCommerce returns. Warehouse staff were no longer required to manage any returns - they could focus on fulfilling new orders quickly. 

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The impact of this partnership on Palladium Boots Canada’s staff, customers, and margins has been significant:

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• High drop-off adoption: The convenience of returning items to a drop-off location without printing a return label or repacking them was a hit with customers. 54% of returns used the ReturnBear drop-off locations instead of traditional mail-in options.
• ‍Huge savings on shipping:  The cost of shipping a return in Canada is expensive it can range from $14-$16. For Palladium Boots Canada, ReturnBear drop-offs resulted in a 70% reduction in return shipping fees - a huge saving.
• ‍Reduction in return processing times: Warehouse staff are able to process items faster without spending hours manually inspecting, approving, repacking, and processing returns. 

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“[ReturnBear] makes returns EASY for our customers and us. Before ReturnBear, our online returns were a manual process which involved multiple teams and multiple touch points with the customer. Since using ReturnBear: our return-related customer service tickets have gone down, customers receive refunds in a timely manner, and our warehouse team is able to get returned items back on the shelves quickly and efficiently for re-sale.”

— Manny Alamwala, Director of Ecommerce, Palladium Boots Canada

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If you’re looking to reduce your customer service and operation lift and enhance the customer experience, reach out to us today to make your return pains go away.