The company sees record demand for its enterprise-grade technology platform as retailers leverage returns to attract and retain customers ahead of the holiday season

Optoro, Inc., the leading technology platform for retail returns and reverse logistics, today announced that its platform has processed more than 100 million returns. In October 2022 alone, the company processed 8.63 million units, a 74% increase YoY from Q3 2021. This milestone comes on the heels of impressive growth for the company, as retailers and brands look to innovative returns offerings as a competitive advantage that can boost customer loyalty, drive additional revenue, and minimize costs and environmental waste.

Optoro is best known for its AI-powered decision-making platform for processing and routing returns for major retailers like IKEA, Best Buy, Staples, and American Eagle. Over the past several years, the company has grown to become the market’s only end-to-end platform that addresses the full returns lifecycle — from customer experience, to back-end management, to the resale of returned inventory. With new features, including investments in scalability and ease of implementation across its enterprise-grade platform, Optoro has expanded its customer base beyond big box retailers to welcome mid-market e-commerce companies, with a particular interest in apparel and home goods retailers.

“Returns have historically been viewed as a cost center for retail,” said Tobin Moore, Optoro’s co-founder and CEO. “Our all-in-one platform flips the script. Optoro provides best-in-class solutions that transform returns into a growth engine with massive benefits — from driving additional sales to boosting customer loyalty, all while reducing waste and expenses. And we make it easy for retailers to adopt this innovative technology, by providing them with one platform that does it all. We’re the only provider that retailers can depend on to power the returns journey from the initiation of the shopper’s experience all the way to the routing of an item to its next best home.”

Optoro has expanded its technology and footprint to meet increased demand from mid-market retailers, including:

• Ongoing investment in customer experience + insights: Optoro has continued to invest in its front-end customer experience offering, Returns Experience. This self-service returns portal enables retailers to offer an intuitive returns experience with features like easy exchanges, packageless returns drop-offs through its Express Returns program, and built-in fraud prevention. What’s unique within the industry is how seamlessly Optoro’s Returns Experience connects to the company’s back-end Returns Management. This end-to-end view gives retailers real-time insight, controls, and automation around the entire chain of a return. Ultimately, retailers can use these insights to make improvements to prevent returns before they happen — like providing more accurate sizing and descriptions or clearer imagery. All in all, retailers who implement Optoro’s Returns Experience portal can expect to see Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores of 90% or higher.
• New facilities to support growing customer base: To support the increasing number of returns processed through its platform, Optoro opened new distribution facilities in North America. In June, the company launched its software at a Canadian facility for the first time, which saw a 100% increase in efficiency compared to prior systems. In tandem, Optoro expanded its managed service offering to the West Coast as part of its nationwide processing network.
• Optoro Leadership: Optoro has invested heavily in growing its leadership team and Board of Directors to support ongoing expansion. Today, the company’s Board of Directors features retail veterans with deep and diverse expertise in e-commerce, digital transformation, and the circular economy. Of note, the company welcomed industry-veteran Libby Johnson McKee to the Board of Directors in September 2022. In 2021, Fumbi Chima, Global CIO, joined the company’s Board of Directors.

Optoro’s platform not only helps retailers attract customers and boost revenue, but also enables retailers to meet their circularity goals. With Optoro’s all-in-one platform, returns are processed quickly and intelligently, increasing resale value and minimizing the chance they are sent to landfills. Since 2015, Optoro’s retailer customers have:

• Kept 95% of returns and excess inventory out of landfills
• Diverted 14.7 million pounds of waste from landfills
• Prevented almost 52 million pounds of carbon emissions.

“Optoro is applying the core tenets of circularity to create lasting impact on the retail industry,” said Adam Vitarello, co-founder and President of Optoro. “Our technology doesn’t just do good — it creates a scalable and sustainable process that benefits business operations, consumers, and the planet. At the end of the day, it’s our responsibility to address the massive issue of returns. If we can do that while making the process a business driver, then that’s a win-win.”