• The Information reports that several software and payments companies, including PayPal and Shopify, are getting into the returns business: "They offer services to help brands salvage revenue by convincing shoppers to swap out purchases or buy something else instead of requesting a full refund. Their pitch to online sellers is they need these services to better compete with Amazon … Smaller sellers, which make up the bulk of the approximately 2 million subscribers to Shopify’s website-building software, in particular have felt the squeeze—which has been an opportunity for software providers like Loop Returns that can plug into Shopify-hosted sites."
Some context:
"Sites like Amazon have long made it easy for shoppers to buy items to try out at home and return what they didn’t like. But as many more people bought things online during the pandemic, return rates soared. With stores closed, more shoppers got in the habit of purchasing several items or sizes they had no intention of keeping, a behavior they maintained even as lockdowns lifted.
"The return rate for e-commerce purchases more than doubled to 18% in 2020 from the year earlier, according to the National Retail Federation. That stoked a land grab in the returns business among payments and e-commerce giants - PayPal announced it would buy venture-backed startup Happy Returns in May 2021. That same month installment lender Affirm bought returns software provider Returnly for around $300 million."
