This week we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the founding of Happy Returns.

For those of us who have been here for all or most of the journey, it’s been fun to reflect on how far we’ve come. When we started the company in the fall of 2015, there were two ways to return online purchases: 1) take it to the retailer’s physical store (if they had one, and if they accepted online returns); and 2) box it up, print a label, and take it to a carrier — and then wait a week or three, hoping to get your refund. We thought there should be a third way: drop off the items without a box or a label at a location close to you and get an instant refund, even for retailers who don’t have stores.

Having created a similar service at the startup HauteLook.com for our online shoppers to return items to Nordstrom Rack stores, we knew shoppers loved returning this way. (70% adoption in three months!) Naturally, we thought by making customers happy and solving the biggest pain point of online shopping, we would help the online retailers increase sales and profits.

Not everyone was convinced. Many of the investors we pitched in early funding rounds passed, and many online retailers were, let’s say, hesitant to make returns easier for their customers (for fear of increasing return rates). With the help of some key people who believed in us early on — notably, Greg Bettinelli who was then at Upfront Ventures and Tracy DiNunzio and Mariah Case, the founders of Tradesy and Eloquii, respectively — we got the service up and running.

Like all startups, we had our share of ups and downs. During the first year, David, our CEO and co-founder, would come to me every afternoon and say, “Are you ready for your daily kick in the gut?” and then share the latest rejection he had endured that day while pitching easy returns. We’d usually have a good laugh and then get right back at it. And when we launched Net Promoter Score surveys to the shoppers doing returns and saw that our NPS was an exceptionally high 95, we knew we were on the right track and we were confident the larger retailers would eventually come to agree.

Also, like all successful startups, we’ve had more than our share of good luck. There were two developments we had not counted on that were enormously beneficial for Happy Returns. The first was that, about eighteen months after we launched our service, Amazon launched a similar service for their shoppers, enabling online returns at Kohl’s stores. This strongly validated our premise (box-free in-person returns are the future) and encouraged other retailers to follow suit. The second was that Congress unexpectedly passed legislation declaring that all ecommerce transactions were subject to state and local sales tax, which removed the risk that our in-person returns would create that requirement only for retailers who used our service.

Finally, like many successful startups, we had a near-death experience, which for us, was Covid. Having to shutter every Return Bar® location in our then-700-location network. But we managed to navigate our way through it, eventually bringing the service back to life.

Needless to say, it’s been very gratifying watching the company and the service we created become the industry standard for a process used by millions of people every day.

Today more than 87% of all online returns are done box-free, most with instant or near-instant refunds, and with consolidated shipping to streamline operations for retailers1. Just as gratifying has been watching and encouraging the growth of our team. We’ve been very fortunate to be joined on our journey by some wonderfully talented, dedicated, thoughtful, and kind human beings. Seeing them grow and become leaders who often set a new bar for execution continues to be one of the best parts of the job.

We’re grateful to the leaders at PayPal who gave us the fuel to scale our service and grow our team, but it was only after joining UPS that we found the right long-term home. With their expertise, we’ve automated our hubs and raised operational efficiency to a new level. Today, we process nearly all returns the same day they arrive and deliver them back to retailers with time-in-transit comparable to standard ground returns — all with exceptionally low loss rates.

With this foundation, we’re equipped to support some of the world’s largest and most innovative retailers, helping them deliver faster refunds and a smoother experience to millions of shoppers.

Our mission is and has always been to make returns beautiful for shoppers, retailers, and the planet. Ten years in, Happy Returns sets the standard for online returns. It’s been a great ride thus far. We’re excited to see what the next ten years will bring.

Sources: Happy Returns internal data, 2025

Net Promoter Score (NPS): A customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a company, product, or service to others. It is calculated by asking respondents to rate their likelihood on a scale from 0–10, then subtracting the percentage of detractors (0–6) from the percentage of promoters (9–10)

Mark Geller
Co-Founder

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