How Studs generates additional retained revenue on over 20% of their returns with Loop

By partnering with Loop, the jewelry company Studs continues to scale thanks to the additional retained revenue they generate on over 20% of their returns.

Industry
Jewelry

Previous returns solution
Returnly

Key features
Insights
Custom Rules

“Loop has completely exceeded all our expectations,” says Yujin Yong, VP of Digital Products at Studs.

Overview

Studs is a jewelry brand reimagining the ear piercing and earring experience to meet the needs of today’s customers.

Studs started in 2019 by co-founders Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers after asking themselves: If you wanted to get an affordable needle ear piercing and also buy jewelry for your holes once they healed, where would you go at any age above, say, 14?

The answer was not many places – they’d found a hole in the market and began to build Studs.

Today, Studs is an experiential retail and ecommerce brand that believes pierced ears are the key to unlocking self-expression, or as they coined, discovering a Hole New You. Part of that experience includes offering dynamic and flexible exchanges – something Loop supports them with.

Since partnering with Loop, Studs’ achieved:

  • 20% of revenue retained from returns 
  • $1.20 average upsell per return
  • Improved, scalable return processing
  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Seamless return and exchange experiences
“We’ve seen returns transform into exchanges more frequently, supporting our growing business by helping us retain additional revenue,” says Yong.

Challenge

Studs offers a modern solution to the previously outdated ear piercing industry and cumbersome process surrounding it. 

For years, there’s been a gap in the market consisting of antiquated mall brands, tattoo parlors, and high-end boutiques that are either unsafe, intimidating, or overpriced. Studs closes this gap and improves the customer journey by connecting a healthy and consultative ear piercing service with trend-driven and fairly-priced earrings, available to shop both online and in-store.

They like to think of themselves as Claire’s for Gen-Z and millennials, and are focused on people ages 18-35. As such, they’ve found their customers are highly engaged brand loyalists that love to create and share their one-of-a-kind earscape styles.

Unfortunately, prior to joining Loop, they were unable to extend the same level of flexibility and freedom of expression when it came to returns and exchanges – so they began looking for a solution.

“We needed a customizable returns platform that could scale with our business, that’s when turned to Loop,” says Yong.

Solution

The most impactful material change Studs noticed upon joining Loop was their ability to offer their customers comprehensive exchanges – in other words, they could enable customers to shop their entire product catalog during an exchange rather than a variation of their return item.

This was instrumental in delivering on their promise to treat each ear and earring as unique, whereas previously they were unable to extend that promise post-purchase. But that’s not all.

Studs continues to remain impressed by their newfound, insightful return data which helps them make better informed business decisions, as well as their ability to scale their return process as they grow.

In particular, Studs was drawn to two of Loop’s additional features: Insights and Custom Rules.

  • Insights is a powerful tool that grants access to in-depth data around return reasons, customer behavior, and operations – all of which is uniquely leveraged by Studs to scale their business and to understand how they can better serve their customer’s needs. Knowing why certain earrings are returned more often, say due to sizing or color inconsistencies, allows them to fix these issues and proactively avoid unnecessary future returns.

  • Custom Rules also enables further improved customer experiences since this enables merchants to optimize workflows and policy rules, and offer advanced exchanges, bundles, or keep item capabilities. 

As a hyper-growth start-up, Studs is continuously launching new initiatives, opening new stores, and offering new earrings, so they needed a partner that would support them every step of the way.

“Our dedicated Loop account manager checks-in with us frequently and supports us with any questions or needs; it truly feels like she’s a part of our team,” says Yong.