Q&A: Samir Kamnani, Senior International Programme Manager, Loop
Samir Kamnani is Senior International Programme Manager at Loop, where he focuses on helping retailers understand how technology can transform the returns and post-purchase experience. He has particular expertise in ecommerce, returns management and international retail, with a focus on helping brands balance customer experience with profitability.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I started my career in product marketing after studying Computer Information Systems at Chapman University, initially working at Spireon, where I got a really good insight into technology and how to bring products to market. Since then, I’ve moved further into ecommerce and retail technology, and at Loop I’ve spent the last few years working across product marketing, international markets and the returns space.
A big part of my work at Loop has been looking at how retailers can use technology to make returns and the wider post-purchase experience work harder for the business. That’s included working with brands on everything from international expansion and cross-border returns to reverse logistics, returns strategy and customer experience. I’ve seen first-hand that returns aren’t just an operational issue; they can have a real impact on revenue, loyalty and how a customer views a brand.
What does your company do? / What is your USP?
Loop is an operations platform built around retention. We help brands build customer confidence across the whole shopping journey, from the moment someone is considering a purchase through everything that happens afterwards.
A big part of that is making the post-purchase experience feel simple and easy. That includes tracking, returns, exchanges, protection and customer support, but also using those interactions as opportunities to keep customers engaged rather than losing them.
Loop is now trusted by more than 5,000 brands and has processed more than 100 million returns. We’ve also developed tools such as Workflows, Instant Exchanges, Shop Now, Checkout+ and Bonus Credit to help retailers reduce costs, increase customer lifetime value and ultimately retain more revenue.
For me, that’s the real difference with Loop. We’re not just helping retailers process returns more efficiently; we’re helping them think about the entire customer journey and how every interaction can contribute to retention.
What’s special about the platform and your approach?
A big part of what makes Loop different is the intelligence we can bring to the returns process. Our proprietary AI engine has been trained on data from more than 200 million shoppers, 100 million returns and 1.4 billion shipments, giving us a very broad view of how consumers behave after they buy.
That allows us to move beyond simply automating a process. We can help retailers understand what is happening, predict what is likely to happen and take action, whether that means encouraging an exchange, identifying potentially fraudulent behaviour or helping a customer find a better product.
What advantage does it add?
The biggest advantage is that retailers can start treating returns as part of the customer journey rather than the end of it.
A good returns experience can build confidence and encourage customers to shop again, while a poor one can lose the customer altogether. Our latest data report, The Returns Revenue Gap, found that 55% of British shoppers have stopped shopping with a retailer or abandoned a purchase because of its returns policy. This demonstrates just how directly returns can influence purchasing decisions and customer retention.
At the same time, retailers need to manage the significant operational and financial costs associated with returns. The opportunity is to balance both sides – making the experience easier for the customer while protecting revenue for the retailer.
How does a product/service implementation actually look like and how do you measure success?
Implementation is designed to integrate with the retailer’s existing technology and ecommerce infrastructure rather than requiring them to rebuild everything from scratch.
Once live, we look at metrics such as exchange adoption, retained revenue, refund rates, return rates and customer behaviour. Ultimately, success comes down to whether the retailer is reducing unnecessary costs while improving the customer experience and retaining more revenue.
How are retailers using your systems to gain competitive advantage and what does best practice look like? Can you share a case study with us?
The retailers getting the most from returns are the ones that recognise there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. They use data to understand why customers are returning products and then use that insight to influence what happens next.
For example, Loop’s Product Recommendations uses AI to help customers find an alternative product when they initiate a return. Across brands using the technology, 90% have seen an average 11%[1] increase in retained revenue through AI-powered product recommendations.
There is a real commercial opportunity here. Our latest research found that 76% of retailers agree the returns experience has a significant impact on customer loyalty, yet only 6% identify customer churn as one of their biggest post-purchase challenges. This suggests there is still a gap between recognising the importance of returns and fully understanding their impact on retention.
Best practice is really about making the return feel like another opportunity to serve the customer rather than simply processing a refund and saying goodbye.
Are there other companies you partner with?
Loop has been built alongside the ecommerce ecosystem. We have over 6,000 partners in our program, including marketing and development agencies, logistics and fulfillment companies, and other technology platforms that brands rely on.
We believe in collaborating with the best-in-class partners, so that brands can build best-in-class experiences for their shoppers. For example, we have over 120 technology integrations that our customers use to improve the pre and post-purchase experience.
Some of our top partners in the UK include:
- Agencies: Vervaunt, Domaine, VisualSoft
- Technology partners: Shopify, Klaviyo, Gorgias
- Shipping: OpenBorder, Sendcloud, Global-e, Passport
- Logistics / Warehouse: Bleckmann, Torque, Active Ants, Linnworks, Brightpearl
What challenges and opportunities do you see in UK retail for 2027?
Retailers are going into 2027 under continued pressure to protect margins while still delivering the convenience consumers have come to expect.
Returns will be a big part of that conversation. Our latest UK research found that 92% of consumers say return charges influence how they shop online, while 55% have stopped shopping with a retailer or abandoned a purchase because of its returns policy. This creates a difficult balancing act: retailers need to manage the cost of returns without introducing policies that undermine customer confidence or drive shoppers towards competitors.
Fraud is another growing challenge. Our research found that 31% of UK consumers admit to sometimes or often providing an inaccurate reason for making a return, while 56% of retailers still rely on manual reviews to identify suspicious returns.
I think the opportunity is for retailers to become much more intelligent about returns, using data to understand what is driving them, encouraging exchanges where appropriate and identifying where they can remove friction without simply absorbing more cost.
How will you address these challenges and turn them into successes?
Technology will play a major role, but I don’t think technology alone is the answer. Retailers need to connect the data they already have and use it to make better decisions across the customer journey.
For Loop, that means continuing to invest in AI and automation that can help retailers predict behaviour, personalise the experience and protect revenue. We know that 56% of retailers still rely on manual reviews to identify suspicious returns, while only 16% use AI or machine learning to detect fraud. That highlights a clear opportunity for retailers to use technology more effectively to identify risk and make the returns process more efficient.
The goal isn’t to make returns harder for consumers; it’s to make the process smarter for everyone, protecting retailer margins while maintaining the customer experience that drives loyalty.
What is on the horizon for you as a company?
We’re continuing to expand the role that AI can play across the pre-and post-purchase journey. We’ve already seen how AI can help with product recommendations, fraud detection and returns forecasting, and there is a much bigger opportunity ahead.
Ultimately, we want to help retailers move from reacting to returns to being much more proactive about them, using the information generated by every return to improve products, operations and the customer experience.
Any final thoughts?
Returns have traditionally been treated as a necessary cost of doing business, but I think that mindset is changing.
Every return is also a piece of customer and product data, and potentially another opportunity to retain a customer. When over half (55%) of UK shoppers have stopped shopping with a retailer or abandoned a purchase because of its returns policy, this highlights the commercial consequences of getting this part of the customer journey wrong.
The retailers that recognise returns as both a customer experience and a commercial opportunity will be in a much stronger position as retail continues to evolve. The opportunity is to make returns better for the shopper and more valuable for the business at the same time.
[1] https://www.loopreturns.com/launches/spring-2026/
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To find out how Loop Returns can help your retail operation, visit them online here: www.loopreturns.com or connect with them here: Loop on LinkedIn.
