An interview carried out by PSFK reveals how Curated, an ecommerce start-up focused on guiding consumers when making their purchases have a less than 1% return rate.
Fast, reliable service is one of the most desired traits of online marketplaces but with fast service comes less thought through impulse buying. Curated works by pairing consumers with experts that can then provide personalised product recommendations for either Winter Sports, Golf, Cycling or Yacht charters with Adventure travel, Ski vacations and Fly fishing joining them next year. Multiple messages are then sent back and forth between customer and expert for as long as a couple of weeks.
Despite the service currently offering a very limited list of categories, there is definitely more room for expert advice and guidance in the industry and there is something quite interesting about bringing back some human touch to online marketplaces. Customers rely heavily on the experiences of others before making decisions on their own purchases and by getting it from people with the relevant knowledge customers could make better choices earlier on. I can see that the use of expert advice would always need to be heavily regulated to avoid biased recommendations or manipulative advice from people falsely posing as experts that could cause problems for both competitors and consumers.
How did curated achieve the low return rate?
Curated founder and former LinkedIn exec, Eduardo Vivas believes that by having someone guide you through the process of finding the right thing there will be less of a desire to return it. They even have a 14-day playability guarantee which allows customers to return used items within that time period and yet still returns are low showing just how vital expert advice is to the profits of the company. Curated focus on making sure both customers and experts have a fantastic experience.
