Sylvia Ng’s ReturnBear is Simplifying Product Returns and Changing the E-Commerce Game

Anyone who shops online knows the hassle of returning items to vendors. Major retailers often face significant issues, with online commerce becoming the primary way many people shop. Returning anything—from snug jeans to faulty electronics—can feel like a frustrating ordeal. Customers often have to wait for the product to return, undergo inspection, and eventually get their money back.

Beyond being inconvenient, returns are also bad for the environment. Transportation emissions contribute to environmental degradation, and returned products often end up in landfills. Few people have seen this problem more clearly than Sylvia Ng in her e-commerce career. Ng, the former General Manager of Shopify, previously worked as a Site Analytics Manager for eBay Canada and as a Product Marketing Manager at Google. Although she comes from a tech background, Ng wanted to use her expertise to improve e-commerce for brands and reduce the environmental impact of product returns. Ottawa Life spoke with Ng about her company, ReturnBear, which aims to become a global leader in product return systems while also cutting down on emissions.

While working at Shopify, Ng noticed a “giant returns problem,” explaining, “In North America, we’re returning almost $900 billion worth of goods every year.” Although specific data is unavailable, Ng says it’s a near certainty that most of these products end up in landfills.

How can this problem be resolved or at least significantly mitigated? Enter ReturnBear, which combines ease of use, protections for consumers and businesses, and innovative solutions to cut down on costs and environmental harm. Imagine the simplicity of an Amazon return process for any product—a system that gets money back to the customer quickly while ensuring the correct product is being returned. ReturnBear also offers unique options to reduce fulfilment costs for participating businesses.

Before ReturnBear, Amazon set the standard for return ease, but ReturnBear goes a step further. Beyond simplifying returns, ReturnBear actively helps merchants lower costs, reduce fraud, and improve sustainability. With its user-friendly app and QR code system that allows customers to drop off packages with minimal effort, Amazon’s process is so intuitive it has been called “granny proof,” meaning even the elderly can navigate it without issue. ReturnBear replicates and enhances this simplicity for its clients. Customers can initiate a return by generating a QR code, which is then scanned at a designated drop-off point. The customer receives their refund—credited back to their bank account or credit card—before they leave the location, in as little as 45 seconds.

At the drop-off location, staff members inspect the returned product to ensure it matches the return details and to identify potentially fraudulent activities, such as product swapping or fraudulent returns.

Ng points out, “Return rates have been climbing in the past few years, and along with that, there is a rising amount of return fraud. Right now, that problem is costing the market $100 billion.” Trends like bracket buying—where customers purchase multiple sizes of the same item and return the rest—and wardrobing, where customers buy items for one-time use (e.g., wearing an outfit to an event) and then return them, are some of the common issues driving this cost.

ReturnBear also introduces forward fulfilment of returns, a game-changing feature. After an item is returned, if it’s in resellable condition, it can be stored at a nearby distribution centre instead of being sent back to a central warehouse far away. If the same product is ordered within the same locality or nearby area, the item is shipped directly from the centre. This reduces shipping distance and cuts both shipping costs and emissions. On average, businesses using this system save 50 percent on shipping and fulfilment expenses.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of ReturnBear is its accessibility and sustainability. ReturnBear doesn’t just make returns easier—it prevents waste. Instead of brands discarding returned goods due to inefficient logistics, items can be quickly re-routed and resold. This approach saves inventory from landfills while cutting emissions by up to 40 percent. With its easy-to-navigate software, ReturnBear empowers small and medium-sized businesses, giving them the tools to compete with e-commerce giants while reducing their environmental footprint.

Ng believes ReturnBear is particularly crucial for Canadian businesses in the current economic climate, especially with the possibility of a trade war with the United States. “Brands I come across are worried about how to continue to make profitability work,” Ng says. She believes that by addressing the “excess waste (from returns) that businesses have in their systems,” operations can become significantly more cost-efficient. Ng views optimizing return systems as a cornerstone for this efficiency.

With $900 billion worth of returns processed in North America last year, Ng’s focus on revolutionizing this process is both timely and essential. If you’d like to explore ReturnBear’s services for domestic or international returns, visit their website at returnbear.com.

Photos: Courtesy Tech Beat Canada