Built For Athletes

Built for Athletes was founded by Nick Costello in 2018. Inspired by his passion for fitness, he launched the durable, functional, and stylish backpacks designed specifically for athletes. As an avid CrossFit enthusiast, he noticed a gap in the market for high performance gear that fit the needs of both everyday and elite athletes. 

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Known for robust construction, spacious compartments, and multiple pockets, the premium fitness brand is accelerating its growth with dedicated customers and Swap as a partner. 

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Swap spoke with Supply Chain Manager, Matt King, the operational improvements seen from implementing Swap.

Having the options for offering exchanges and store credit has helped us retain revenues of about 20% overall. It also makes a massive difference having analytics, which are really straightforward on the dashboard.

-Matt King, Supply Chain Manager

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The Swap solution

The Numbers: 

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• Average Returns Per Week: 40 returns
• Time Saved Per Return: 10-15 minutes
• Total Time Saved Per Week: Approximately one full workday 

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The benefits: 

Retained revenue

Providing options for exchanges and store credits has significantly increased retained revenue by 20%. The analytics dashboard offers clear insights into retained revenue, store credits, and refunds for more informed decision-making.

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Automated efficiency

The ability to automate reverse logistics has freed up substantial time for the team, equivalent to having an additional staff member, by reducing the need for manual entry and tracking of return shipments.

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Removed limitations

 The previous tech stack required customers to handle returns manually, with no tracking or immediate processing upon return. Refunds were issued manually, leading to inefficiencies and delays.

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System Integration

An integrated warehouse system ensures the immediate processing and tracking of returns, while providing an automated refund process. This transition has markedly improved operational efficiency and customer service.

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Customer Satisfaction

Swap streamlined returns process transforms the customer returns experience through a user-friendly portal. This automation saves the team substantial time and reduces manual tasks, enhancing efficiency while giving consumers the option to self serve.

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How is it having Swap as a partner? 

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It's great to have something like Swap that the customer can go in and do it all themselves through a portal, filling in all the information. It saves a huge amount of time so we don’t have to do it manually. 

It's a really user friendly tool as well so even people that aren't tech savvy can use a portal. I've had to go through when we're overriding the charges, for example, or addressing some errors and I find it really simple so it couldn't be more straightforward. I think the biggest thing with using something like Swap is the time it saves for both the customer and for the business too. 

Swap basically saves us a member of staff, I would say.

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How does the time saved actually stack up?  

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As an average, it's around 40 returns a week, something along those lines. So if we were having to do that manually every time, I would say it would take, on average, at least 10-15 minutes at a time to process the return. That doesn’t include the time spent talking to the customers so if you've got 40 of those a week, it's probably an entire day of your time gone when you've got other things to be doing. 

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How important is it to have something like automation on the reverse logistics side of the business with such a lean, mean team? 

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Having something that we control on our side that's automated allows us to track everything so we know when it comes back and forth and that’s time-saving. If I was, for example, having to individually book these shipments, that would be my entire job. So being able to do it in a few clicks of a button through Swap basically saves us  a member of staff, I would say.

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What’s been the impact on your returns and refunds?

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Having the options to exchange or get store credit has helped us retain revenue of around 20% or just overall. It also makes a massive difference having analytics, which are really straightforward on the dashboard.

We’re able to see the difference between the retained revenue, the store credits we've given out, the refunds, and the split between the 3. 

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Warehouse integrations are another part of how the business has transformed. Any feedback on that feature? 

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The main one was being able to easily track reasons for stock return. In the case where something is damaged, for example, Swap allows the warehouse login to go on and see the specific reason so straight away we can process a refund which you can imagine how long would take manually. That saves costs on our part, because we're paying them to deal with processing the return. 

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Closing thoughts? 

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Anything that's as user friendly as Swap is just great. The way it kind of integrates as well with shopify and everything that makes our life easy because it avoids repetition, which is something we have quite a lot of. 

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It’s just an overall good experience, really. And we've currently signed up to analytics. The marketing analysis helps my other staff look at that side of things and I think they're very impressed with how it's going so far. I don't see any obstacles in two businesses growing together in other ways. 

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