Returnly raises $8m funding for post-purchase paradise
San Francisco-based post-purchase payments firm Returnly has got $8 million in Series A funding – that it probably won’t be returning.
“Product returns is a moment of truth in a brand relationship with its customers”
In addition, the company has secured a credit facility that will enable it to finance over $300 million in repurchases made by shoppers returning products online to merchants in the Returnly network.
The round was led by inside investors Mundi Ventures and The Venture City, with participation from Novel TMT Ventures and CoVenture. The latter also supplied Returnly with the line of credit.
“Product returns is a moment of truth in a brand relationship with its customers,” says Eduardo Vilar, founder and CEO of Returnly.
He adds: “Modern consumers don’t want to be exposed to the clunky reverse logistics processes that come into play when returning products online. After processing returns worth hundreds of millions of dollars, we’ve learned that removing this friction creates loyal, repeat customers. The challenge for brands is that they can’t assess their shoppers behaviour until a return is processed at the distribution centre and as a result, can not offer shoppers the instant gratification and seamless returns experience they expect. This is where we come in.”
The firm lets shoppers buy again using return credit before shipping the original items back and settles the new order in real-time, “taking the product risk”.
The company has developed a turn-key solution around its core post-purchase payments technology that includes returns management tools for large scale retailers and brandable end-customer touchpoints like order and returns tracking, online returns and exchanges.
In the two years since launching, the firm says it has developed relationships with hundreds of merchant partners and issued more than $100 million in returns credit to end-customers.
The new financing and line of credit will be used to onboard larger merchants and integrate its platform with other reverse logistics, e-commerce, loyalty and CRM platforms.
In the US alone, Returnly reckons shoppers are expected to spend over $600 billion in online purchases in 2019, as the e-commerce market grows steadily at about 15% year-over-year.
While return rates vary depending upon product types, 25-30% of online purchases are returned on average, nearly three times higher than offline purchases.
