Sharetown

Sharetown is a returns management company that handles returns of big and bulky products such as mattresses, home furnishings and fitness equipment for the brands that sell them. Items like these are often called unboxable returns because a customer cannot repack them and ship them back through ordinary parcel carriers, so online sellers of large goods tend to outsource reverse logistics. The company describes its service as an end-to-end, one-click solution covering everything from product collection to redistribution, and it serves the sleep, furniture and fitness industries.

When a customer requests a return, a proprietary dispatch algorithm assigns a local rep to schedule a pickup, and the rep then cleans, sanitizes and stores the item. Like-new products are resold on secondary marketplaces, while unsellable items are recycled locally, an approach the company links to higher cost recovery and to emissions it says are reduced by about 97%. For retailers, this model turns a return from a pure loss into a chance to recover some value from the inventory.

The software side runs on the Reprise platform, which includes a REST API for sending automated return requests from a retailer's CRM and a partner portal with real-time pickup notifications, inventory tracking by SKU and reporting for each return. Physical work is carried out by a nationwide network of trained, vetted reps, and the company reports more than 90% nationwide coverage and over 500K oversized returns processed. Pairing dispatch software with a local workforce keeps bulky items close to where they are collected, which shortens the distance they travel and can lower handling costs.