Happy Returns, a company attempting to take the remorse out of your online shopping by making returns easier, announced on Thursday that it has raised $11 million in a financing round led by PayPal.
Founded in 2015, the Los Angeles-based company partners with retailers like Sur La Table, Everlane and Cost Plus World Market to reduce the friction of online shopping. For shoppers, the buying part is easy — almost too easy, some might say — but returns are another story. (Good luck finding the right-size box or a printer for the label.)
Co-founder and CEO David Sobie said partnering with PayPal will help his company expand the network of merchants it works with.
“Our mission is to make returns more delightful for consumers, more cost-effective for retailers, and more sustainable for the planet,” said Sobie in a statement. “We’re thrilled to work with PayPal to make the process of returning more seamless for shoppers and our service more broadly available to PayPal’s large network of merchants.”
Happy Returns attempts to solve that challenge with more than 350 return bars in 63 metro areas, and with a line of in-store self-service return kiosks. Customers can then take their unwanted online orders from participating retailers and drop them off at one of those locations. At the return bars, a customer service person receives the item and instantly processes the return, before taking care of the return shipping.
To reduce the carbon footprint of ill-fitting shoes and dresses, the company aggregates returns before shipping them back to the participating retailers in bulk. Happy Returns also offers analytics on all returns, helping companies understand why certain products come back more than others.
The round brings Happy Returns total funding to $25 million. In addition to PayPal, existing investors U.S. Venture Partners and Upfront Ventures participated in the round.
