This startup is optimizing the international returns process for sellers on Amazon, eBay

So you’re an online seller looking to make big profits from selling your products. The first thing you’d probably think of is setting up shop on an online marketplace – and for good reason. For local sellers, such marketplaces are a bridge that allows them to cross borders and sell products to an international audience.

“In Asia, most items are exported to markets in the US or Europe, so no matter where you’re starting your business in Asia, you’d eventually think about expanding your business to bigger markets,” says Roy Wan, CEO and co-founder of Return Helper, an end-to-end return management solution .

While marketplaces help local sellers expand their businesses overseas, merchants still have to face challenges such as high logistics costs, complex international returns issues, and higher return rates. Additionally, if returns aren’t handled properly, it can hurt customer satisfaction and retention.

Roy Wan, CEO and co-founder of Return Helper / Photo credit: Return Helper

“Online ad spending is getting more expensive and less effective – customer retention therefore is more important to a brand’s growth than ever, and the returns experience is a big part of that,” says Wan. “Additionally, logistics costs have been a big challenge for merchants since the pandemic. International purchasing costs are extremely high and, if products are returned, merchants will have to fork out high logistics costs too.”

These are some of the pain points Return Helper was built to ease.

Optimizing return experiences for merchants

Ensuring returns isn’t just picking up a parcel from a buyer and returning it to the merchant. For instance, what happens when buyers open the product, try it out, and realize they don’t want it anymore? Plenty of merchants make losses at this stage as they miss out on strategies to retain the commercial value of the return.

Additionally, when local merchants finally decide to move from domestic ecommerce to cross-border ecommerce, many forget to tailor their strategies to global audiences. For example, when targeting consumers in the US, local merchants in Hong Kong sell the same way they do in their homeland.

“When we look at the data, if you sell the same item in Singapore, for example, the return rate is around 10%. But if you sell to Germany or to the US, it could go up to 40%,” says Wan.

Such a difference is something merchants may not expect. For example, if they’re prepared for a 10% return rate, they may think there’s no need for a return solution and are left unequipped to handle a higher rate of returns – this is especially prevalent for smaller ecommerce businesses.

Working with ecommerce firms, Wan has seen the many challenges faced by Asia-based merchants. He heard story after story from clients about the losses they endured due to poor return processes. Selling plenty did not matter much because, for some of these small businesses, profits were eaten up by their losses on returns.

“Small businesses even eventually went into bankruptcy because they didn’t have a good returns solution,” Wan says, “Back in the day, there weren’t too many solutions for the market when it came to returns.”

This inspired him to launch Return Helper, which optimizes the return experience and simplifies the whole process for its clients. Once users are logged into the Return Helper solution, they get a detailed view of logistics processes across markets. The platform also helps merchants make decisions about products more easily. Once a return has been made, the team documents the entire process using everything from pictures to videos to show merchants the exact condition these returns are in.

Through Return Helper, merchants can also avoid paying double the import tax on returns. When merchants in Asia, for example, ship a package to the US and receive a return request, the product is shipped to one of Return Helper’s warehouse partners in the US, instead of back to Asia. Return Helper then repackages it so that the item can still be sold to future buyers as new inventory.

“We’ve built our solution not just for merchants but also for our warehouse partners. Whatever they do, we can actually keep track of their progress. At the same time, sellers can monitor their returns progress through our system,” says Wan.

How Return Helper came to be

The road to creating these solutions was not smooth. When Return Helper began, it charged per return to keep a steady stream of revenue. The more returns it processed, the more revenue it collected. With this initial revenue, Return Helper was able to hire a team of freelancers to help grow the business. However, this led to challenges with consistency.

“As a project manager then, I thought about how we could consolidate our requirements and efficiently deliver this information and manage our freelancers. We then had to combine all the good work from various freelancers and deliver these to our clients,” says Wan.

The company has since grown and now has offices in four cities across Asia and a reliable team of full-timers who have helped develop Return Helper’s solutions. The firm’s growth has been a natural incline. Wan’s former employer, eBay, recognized the need for merchants to optimize their returns processes. As a result, the ecommerce giant supported Return Helper from its earliest days, recommending the startup’s services to merchants on its platform.

The Return Helper team / Photo credit: Return Helper

Two to three months after Return Helper was established, the team became eBay’s recommended solution. Many of the sellers on eBay also sold their products on Amazon, and in 2020, Return Helper also became Amazon’s official partner.

Towards greener logistics

As of August 2022, Return Helper has successfully processed over 600,000 returns globally in less than 36 months. The startup has also partnered with over 30 international carriers and more than 13 overseas warehouses. The firm continues to build new solutions to address upcoming challenges for the sector and improving its existing user experience. Fundraising is also a high priority on its list.

“What we do is more than just logistics. At the end of the day, we want to be the platform for ecommerce business. For any returns related situation, merchants can come to us and we can connect them with the right solutions,” says Wan.

For instance, while small businesses working with Return Helper prioritize convenience and cost reduction, larger enterprises focus on achieving their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Instead of shipping returns back to Asia, they look at other ways to reduce their carbon footprint. One of the ways Return Helper helps them is through recycling products and packaging that are no longer usable across the return supply chain.

Looking ahead, this is especially relevant as high logistic costs will still be one one of the main concerns for merchants, says Wan. Small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to find ways to reduce costs at that stage and prioritize convenience. But larger enterprises will be willing to pay higher prices to achieve their ESG goals, says Wan. As green logistics continues to become more popular, Return Helper has its eyes set on recommerce.

“The economic outlook doesn’t look too bright in the next couple of years. We expect more people to buy secondhand or used items instead of brand new,” says Wan, “We want to be able to resell used returns through our platform and recover the highest commercial value of returned merchandise, all while also building up an ecosystem to provide more options and convenience for merchants when dealing with returns.”

Learn more about Return Helper’s services and start optimizing your return process by visiting the company’s website.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.