LDC Top 50 2019

Graham Best has disrupted the painful business of returning purchases by turning the whole process into a smart, efficient service that produces useful data for brands like ASOS, Wiggle and JD Sports. His company, ReBOUND, now works with 500 brands. Crucially, his platform helps reduce waste; saving money and the environment.

“What makes me get out of bed every morning is the transformational effect we’re having on the industry. We change behaviour. We help the planet. We are making a difference.” Graham has spent his whole career driving efficiency in supply chains. His next move: to expand further internationally. “There’s no reason we can’t operate anywhere in the world.”

Q&A

What is your personal ambition?

Success drives me. Every time we win an award or a retailer comes to us to do business, or a partner wants to work with us, that drives me. I could stop tomorrow and do a trade sale and we would all go sit on the beach. But I don’t want that. What makes me get out of bed every morning is the transformational effect we’re having on the industry. We change behaviour. We help the planet. We are making a difference.

How have you grown your business in the last 5 years?

Fashion was an immediate focus for the business because the returns rate is so high. One in four things a retailer sends out comes back, and they don’t know why or when. Before we show up, returns are a blind spot for most retailers. Meanwhile, the customer has no idea when they will get the refund. The whole process is broken. My company turns the return into an asset and manages it so that the refund is processed when the retailer wants it to be. Right now, we have 160 services on the system and 50 countries live.

What’s been your biggest mistake?

In the early days, we relied on other people’s ideas to build our platform. We aggregated those ideas and decided that it looked good enough. That was a mistake. After a couple of years we broke the platform down and started from scratch. That was really brave. But I knew the other version was not scalable and sustainable. We would have hit a brick wall and then we’d have been stuck.