About Butcher of Blue 

Butcher of Blue is a real family business founded by two cousins, Bob and Maarten Rijnders. Bob owned a clothing store but wanted to add jeans to the assortment. He decided to start producing himself, and it caught on quickly. Maarten joined him later after gaining experience working for the fashion brand ‘G-Star’.

This Dutch clothing brand has made great strides in recent years. It started with a men’s collection and about a year ago a women’s collection was added, including jeans. The company considers itself to be more of a clothing brand than a fashion brand. At Butcher of Blue they strive to make good, high quality clothing that will retain its beauty even in 5 years time. Littlenonsense,so to speak. 

‍

Currently, 14 employees are working hard to grow the clothing brand. The company’s ambition is to provide a customer journey that flows as smoothly as possible. Because especially the returns process was cumbersome, Jeroen Persoon - Marketplace Manager at Butcher of Blue - went looking for support.

The increase in the number of returns

Butcher of Blue has several sales channels, the most important ones being business-to-business and online marketplaces like Zalando.

‍

According to Persoon, This causes a major drawback: "One of the trends we notice in e-commerce, especially when looking at big players like Zalando, is that it is becoming much easier to return products. People are getting used to ordering whole boxes and then returning a large part of it. You see a change in mentality in the ease with which people order and return."

Butcher of Blue's manual returns process: sufficient, but not enough

Initially, the manual return system Butcher of Blue was using was sufficient, although perhaps a bit cumbersome and certainly not an optimal process. Therefore, taking into account the trend of increasing return rates and the company’s growth ambitions, Persoon went in search of a better return solution.

‍

Persoon: "We had a seperate return form added to each package. The customer could then return the package himself, stating the reason for return on the return form. When it arrived at our warehouse, it was all processed manually. The return data that we extracted from this was processed once a week. In addition, within the ERP system, separate chargebacks had to be made through Mollie, Pay Pal or Klarna."

‍

"In short, this meant a lot of manual work we couldn’t spend too much on, especially with a team of only 14 employees."

‍

It was time to look for a better solution. Persoon: "In particular, we wanted to make the customer journey really easy by taking them by the hand from the moment someone registers a return."

From administrative return burden to a 1-click workflow

During his active search for a better return solution, Jeroen came across Returnista. One of the deciding factors was the fact that Returnista not only delivered more features than the competition, but they also offered exactly the features Butcher of Blue was looking for. 

‍

How has the returns process been going since implementing Returnista?

‍

Persoon: "We now process returns with one click. That means that the return arrives in our ERP system and a financial credit is immediately created in Mollie. Also, when a product is received, the stock entry automatically appears in the platform.

In addition, the returns process for online customers is now much simpler and nicer. Persoon: "Customers can indicate which product or products they want to return. Then they can indicate the reason online and that's it. I think it’s really cool that our customers can exchange a product directly. We see that this feature is used a lot in practice."

The results: reduced administrative burden and increased order value retention

Since Butcher of Blue started working with Returnista, they are getting far fewer basic questions about returns. Also, through Returnista's chat, The questions that remain on how to register are taken over by Returnista’s chat. Persoon: "This frees up about 10 hours a month within our team."

‍

And that’s not all. Butcher of Blue also saves about 2 minutes per return. Persoon: "Right now that means we save about 80-100 minutes per month on 40-50 returns. But with our growth ambitions, we expect to save a total of 20 hours per month within the next two years."

‍

Finally, Butcher of Blue retains sales with Returnista's return solution. Persoon: "Many customers report that the size is not right. Because Returnista is integrated with our warehouse, we can immediately offer customers a size up or down. Thanks to this solution, in the first month and a half of working with Returnista alone, approximately €3,000 in returns were converted into exchanges. That's order value that would otherwise have been lost."

‍

Jeroen Persoon and Butcher of Blue are very pleased to find exactly what they were looking for in Returnista's return solution. "The back office is intuitive, the overview is clear and the reporting is reliable and qualitative. Furthermore, the communication is extremely pleasant and personal. You can really tell that Returnista, as a company, is customer and service oriented." Persoon said.