From High Return Rates to Data-Driven Growth

Meet Beyond Nordic

Beyond Nordic is a fast-growing outdoor brand with a strong focus on sustainability and performance. With a product range designed for hiking and outdoor adventures, the brand combines functionality with a conscious approach including the use of over 70% recycled materials and an active ambition to reduce its environmental footprint.

As part of this mission, reducing returns has become a key priority. Returns not only impact profitability, but also contribute to unnecessary emissions through transport and handling making it both a business and sustainability challenge.
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Struggling with limited return insights and high return rates

In February 2025 - March 2026 Beyond Nordic had over 106,000 products sold and more than 24,000 returns, Beyond Nordic faced a growing challenge. Return rates peaked between 23–30%, putting pressure on both margins and sustainability goals.

While the company knew returns were a problem, they lacked clear visibility into why they were happening.

They needed:

-Full insight into return reasons
-Data on a product and SKU level
-A more autonomous return process

Without these insights, every return became reactive rather than something they could actively prevent.
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The hidden cost of returns

Returns created multiple layers of challenges.

Not only did they lead to lost revenue, but also increased operational costs and unnecessary environmental impact due to shipping and handling. At the same time, the lack of structured data made it difficult to identify patterns or take action.

This left the team guessing:

-Which products were underperforming?
-Was it fit, quality, or expectations?
-Where should they prioritize improvements?

Without answers, meaningful change was difficult to achieve.
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Turning data into action with Droppa

By implementing Droppa, Beyond Nordic gained access to detailed and actionable return insights.

With Droppa’s dashboard, they could now:

-Track return reasons in real time
-Analyze returns on product and SKU level
-Identify patterns across categories

This unlocked a completely new level of understanding by not only knowing why a return happens but also where i happens in a two-layered feedback option in Droppas return portal.
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New insights revealing key problem areas

With data in place through Droppa's Data and Insight Dashboard, clear patterns quickly emerged.

A significant 78.7% of all returns were linked to bottoms, with hiking pants alone accounting for up to 43% of returns.

This made it possible to:

-Pinpoint exactly which products needed improvement
-Give clear direction to product and design teams
-Prioritize efforts where they would have the biggest impact

Instead of guessing, Beyond Nordic could now act with confidence.
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Reducing returns and recovering revenue

With better insights and proactive actions, Beyond Nordic achieved strong results:

-8.6% reduction in return rate (Feb 2025 → 2026)
-Return rate now stabilized at 16–22%
-20.1% of returns converted into exchanges
-835,000 SEK in recovered revenue

By enabling customers to easily exchange products instead of returning them, Beyond Nordic not only reduced losses — but also improved the customer experience by helping customers find the right fit.
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What’s next?

With a strong data foundation in place, Beyond Nordic continues to refine its products and processes.

By continuously analyzing return behavior and optimizing key product categories, they aim to further reduce returns, improve customer satisfaction, and strengthen their position as a sustainable outdoor brand.

The journey forward is clear: fewer returns, better products, and smarter decisions powered by data.

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