Eliminating massive returns headaches while taking pizza to the masses.
For a global brand built on a premium cooking experience, Gozney needed a returns process that could keep up. They turned to Sharetown to protect the customer journey with a seamless, scalable solution.
$200
Saved Per Unit
3x
Faster Returns
50%
Smaller WAREHOUSE
In the realm of premium pizza ovens, Gozney has carved out a distinctive niche. Founded by Tom Gozney in the UK, the company began with a simple passion for the art of cooking with fire. "I just fell in love with the art of cooking with fire, and was so surprised that not many people knew what a pizza oven was or a wood fired oven was," recalls Tom.
This passion led him from building his first pizza oven in his garden to creating a global brand that takes "ancient forms of cooking and making it easy for home cooks today."
From humble beginnings, doing a few million in revenue six years ago, Gozney now clears 9-figures in annual revenue—a testament to what Mike Davis, head of logistics and transportation, calls "explosive growth" that "really speaks to lots of people loving pizza."
Gozney's commitment to excellence extends beyond their products to every customer touchpoint. As Tom explains, "We wanted the entire journey at Gozney from the shopping process...to just be as special as using the product."
Yet one critical touchpoint—product returns—was undermining this premium experience. "The returns process when I first started at Gozney was very cumbersome, took a lot of time, it was very manual and customers had to wait one to two weeks," says Mike Davis.
The process involved sending custom-built crates to customers, scheduling carriers, and extensive communication between multiple parties. Once returned, items required inspection and refurbishment or disposal. "Each of those touchpoints had to be in the system," explains Davis. "It was extremely, extremely cumbersome and took a lot of time to get those units picked up and returned."
Gozney discovered Sharetown through former colleague Mark Watkins, now Sharetown's CFO. The initial 90-day trial proved transformative. "The first 90 days of the trial with Share Town on our returns was super easy. I'd say seamless," Davis recalls. "It was easy to do business with Shared Town... and it was a no-brainer to bring you guys on."
After gaining confidence in the partnership, Gozney moved from manual uploads to full API integration with Sharetown's system. "We pushed for that all the time," notes Davis. "We have a small team... and we need partners that have that capability to allow us to push things automatically from the system."
The financial implications have been substantial. "The financial impact has been huge," Davis emphasizes. "We've been able to save almost $200 per return." With Sharetown handling 80-90% of Gozney's returns, these savings directly benefit the company's bottom line.
Beyond cost savings, Sharetown has transformed Gozney's operations. "We were able to reduce the footprint of our returns warehouse by almost half," says Davis. The streamlined process also freed up resources that could be reinvested into business growth.
Perhaps most importantly, customer experience has dramatically improved. "The original process we had was taking one to two weeks. Now it's a matter of days and the customers are happy about it," Davis notes. "They're having someone show up, get it picked up, and they're not having to strap to a pallet or do all the additional work they normally need to do."
For a brand that prides itself on premium experiences, Sharetown has become an essential partner. "Customers prefer an easy return process," Davis points out. "If you're selling anything online, customers will look at your return policy and see is this going to be easy or is this going to be a pain? We want to be easy to do business with."
The partnership has also allowed Gozney's team to focus on growth rather than returns management. "Because we're using Share Town... it's saved us a headcount and it's helped my team not worry about returns," says Davis. "Instead of my team focused on picking up returns, they're now focused on growing the business."
If Sharetown were to disappear overnight? "We'd be back to where we started," Davis states plainly. But with a five-star review after two years of partnership, that scenario seems unlikely. "We haven't had a single complaint, we've had nothing but positive feedback from customers and from internal customer service teams that love using Shared Town."
For a company that turned pizza-making in the backyard into a global phenomenon, finding a partner that shares their commitment to excellence has proven invaluable—allowing Gozney to focus on their passion for perfect pizza while Sharetown handles the logistics of the occasional return.