Furniture retailer Castlery was facing a common e-commerce dilemma: what to do with customer returns? Before implementing Sharetown's reverse logistics solution, their options were limited and costly - either let customers keep unwanted items or pay carriers up to $300 per pickup. Today, they've not only streamlined operations but turned a cost center into a partial recovery opportunity.

The Challenge: An Incomplete Returns Strategy

Carlos Harper, Senior Operations Manager for Castlery's US and Canada markets, brings a decade of furniture industry experience to his role overseeing operations "from the moment the product gets on the container" until it reaches customers' homes - including the complicated world of reverse logistics.

Before Sharetown, Castlery's returns process was fragmented and expensive:

"Prior to having Sharetown or any type of Rush Logistics solution, honestly we would just let the customer keep it. We didn't have any type of returns process in place," Harper explains.

When customers insisted on returns, Castlery relied on expensive carrier pickups:

"We would pay our carrier just to go and pick it up... which made it much more expensive," costing "between $125 to $150 for the pickup" and sometimes as high as "$250 to $300" in the past.

The Transformation: From Cost Center to Recovery Opportunity

With Sharetown, Castlery transformed their returns process with two key improvements:

1. Faster pickups: "Our goal is to hit 15% recovery of the original MSRP," Harper notes, compared to the previous 3-5% recovery rate.
2. Cost recovery: Instead of paying hundreds for pickups, they now recover "closer to about 7 to 10%" of the item's value.

Customer Experience Improvements

Perhaps most importantly, Sharetown dramatically reduced customer complaints:

"We probably went from me hearing... five to 10 times a week, something that's been delayed and a customer complaining or escalating internally to now. I hardly hear about it at all on the reverse logistics side."

This improvement addresses what Harper identifies as a critical business need: "The goal for us is to always to create a better customer experience. And the part that a lot of people get wrong is that post-sale support, especially when it comes to returns."

Operational Efficiency Gains

The partnership also allowed Castlery to reallocate resources:

"We went from having almost a four person team and we've probably cut that down to about two and a half individuals now that does the return logistics," Harper shares. "A big part of that was not having to manage that inventory after it left our possession."

The simplified reconciliation process has been another win: "Our finance team is very strict about how we reconcile these payments... the current nature of our contract has saved a lot of time and headaches for me."

Advice to Others in the Industry

Harper has become such a believer in the solution that he's recommended it to industry colleagues:

"When I first started and discovered you guys myself, I actually sent out a few emails to others in the industry like, 'Hey man, I didn't know this existed.'"

His advice to others? "It's not to settle for that initial 'keep everything and get a full refund' policy... there are better solutions out there now."

Castlery's experience demonstrates how the right reverse logistics partner can transform returns from a costly operational headache into a streamlined process that enhances customer satisfaction, recovers value, and frees up internal resources for more strategic initiatives.

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