Figuring out the cause for returns is just as much a qualitative exercise as it is a quantitative exercise. At what volume of returns should you be alarmed? When should you care? And how do you know when to dig deeper to find the root cause? When you connect the data across the organization you start to see what truly impacted returns. Here are 5 critical connections that can help you make the most of your data from across the organization to reduce returns.

1. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
Reduce Returns

2. The 5 Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
Reduce Returns
Figuring out the cause for returns is just as much a qualitative exercise as it is a quantitative exercise. At what volume of returns
should you be alarmed? When should you care? And how do you know when to dig deeper to find the root cause? When you connect
the data across the organization you start to see what truly impacted returns.
Here are 5 critical connections that can help you make the most of your data from across the organization to
reduce returns.
1. Customer
Reviews
2. Marketing &
Promotions
Campaigns
3. Order
Details
4. Shipping &
Handling
5. Product
Descriptions
& Images

3. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections to Reduce Returns
1. Customer Reviews
How can you leverage customer
review data?
Customer reviews are the voice of your customer.
Keeping track of the ratings across your entire product
line is one element, but the open-ended responses and
reason codes may hold just as much if not more valuable
information. Gathering customer review data from across
your entire product line and comparing that to return
rates can be time consuming. With the right technology,
surfacing problems and outliers can help you focus on
taking the right action quickly versus spending hours on
analyzing return rates.
What are other retailers doing
with customer review data?
With the help of Dynamic Action, a high-end retailer was
alerted to a high rate of return on a popular women’s
dress that was costing them thousands of dollars in
revenue and shipping and handling costs. By connecting
the returns data with their customer reviews and reason
code data, Dynamic Action found that most returns were
due to the fact that the item was “not as expected.”
Upon further investigation, this retailer discovered the
color was misrepresented on the website imagery. They
immediately reshot the dress and updated the product
page.

4. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections to Reduce Returns
2. Marketing & Promotion Campaigns
How can you leverage marketing
promotions and campaigns data?
You may already know the reason behind the high return
rate of a product, but until a potential fix is in place, you
can benefit from limiting the financial impact of those
returns. Knowing what marketing is promoting is one of
the ways to control some of those additional returns and
associated costs. Whether it’s an email campaign, search
terms, or display ads, all of these marketing channels may
be driving additional traffic to products with high return
rates. Not only are these campaigns potentially wasting
marketing dollars, but they’re also eroding the profitability
of these products given the high costs incurred from
returns.
What are other retailers doing
with marketing promotions and
campaign data?
A retailer using Dynamic Action was able to connect
their returns, orders and marketing data. The
application alerted them to orders of a product with a
negative margin. Upon reviewing this opportunity, they
found that these orders were for a product with a
known high return rate due to a product issue and that
marketing costs were higher than average. By working
with the marketing team, this retailer paused the
promotional campaigns until the product issue
was fixed.

5. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections to Reduce Returns
3. Order Details
How can you leverage order details?
Product issues—such as incorrect sizing or quality—are the
most common reasons behind high returns. Sometimes
the exact issue can be difficult to find and may require a
deeper investigation into the product and order details. If
they encounter high returns, a first easy reference is to look
at the customer reviews. But without also knowing the
order details for these customers and the exact return
information, they could end up throwing out the baby with
the bathwater. In other words, it would be hard to discern
whether the returns were due to a single color or size of
that particular product. You don’t want to lose sales on an
entire size/color range of a product if only one color or size
is at issue.
What are other retailers doing
with order details?
Customers were returning a certain pair of pants at a
higher than average rate. Dynamic Action alerted this
high-end retailer of the returns issue citing quality as the
main reason for the returns. Dynamic Action combined
this returns data with the orders data, which revealed
that it was a single color of the pants that were being
returned. When they reached out to their
merchandising department, they discovered that this
color pant had recently switched manufacturers.

6. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections to Reduce Returns
4. Shipping & Handling
How can you leverage shipping and
handling data to reduce returns?
Sometimes returns have nothing to do with the product at
all. Missed delivery-on-promise or shipping the wrong
items can be a large contributor to high returns and low
customer satisfaction. When time-sensitive items like food
or seasonal products miss their delivery promise or the
wrong items are sent with an order, it may not be
apparent to a retailer without visibility into operations,
shipping and handling data. In fact, all a retailer may see
are high returns without the ability to connect the dots to
understand the reason behind these returns.
What are other retailers doing
with shipping and handling data?
A multi-channel retailer connected their orders data,
returns data, and operations (shipping/handling) data
using Dynamic Action. The application identified orders
including highly seasonal products that were going to
miss their delivery on promise in time for an upcoming
holiday. In order to avoid potential future returns and to
ensure customer satisfaction, this retailer immediately
reached out to those customers offering alternative
products and other delivery options like pick up in store
in order to meet delivery timelines—this resulted in
more than $20,000 in additional revenue and
decreased cancellations, returns and back-orders.

7. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
The Critical Connections to Reduce Returns
5. Product Descriptions & Images
How can you leverage product
descriptions and images?
If you have high returns due to product issues, but you
still have inventory on the shelf that you need to sell,
looking at your content (e.g. product pages on the
website) may be the key to reducing returns. The reason
for high returns may be due to something left out from
the product description or imagery. The way a product is
described and showcased on your website can impact
returns just as much as the attributes of the product itself.
Understanding how accurate your portrayal of a product
is on the website can help reduce returns related to
sizing, fit or other product features and flaws.
What are other retailers doing
with product descriptions and
images?
Combining orders data, product data and returns data,
Dynamic Action identified a particular dress that was
being returned due to sizing issues. When digging further
to find out the exact sizing issue, they found that for
most customers the dress ran extremely long. They went
in and updated the product page with a well-placed and
easily understood sizing guideline along with a note on
the length of the dress in the product details. Separately,
they cross-promoted this dress with taller heels and
added a banner reminding customers of their in-store
tailoring services.

8. The Critical Connections of eCommerce success
About Dynamic Action
Dynamic Action from OrderDynamics helps forward-looking retailers and brands drive every last dollar of profit from their eCommerce
business.
This first-of-its-kind Decision Intelligence application connects and analyzes product and customer data across a retailer’s
organization. Unlike any reporting or analytics tool to date, Dynamic Action tells you exactly what’s impacting profit, recommends
actions to take, and ranks them by how much they’re worth to your business.
Find out how the leaders in retail are revolutionizing their omni-channel businesses at www.orderdynamics.com.