【Return Helper Co., Ltd.】Drastically Reducing the Cost of "International Returns" for Cross-Border EC! "Return Helper" Integrates Local Returns & Re-commerce in 17 Countries

20% Return Rate and 10,000 Yen Return Shipping Barrier. The Serious Return Problem Pressuring Cross-Border EC Merchants' Profits

Hello, everyone. My name is Shumpei Shibata, and I am the General Manager for Japan and Asia at Return Helper Co., Ltd.

We are a startup specializing in Asian cross-border EC (Electronic Commerce) merchants, providing a one-shot service to solve the challenges of "international returns" in overseas sales. The cross-border EC market, where merchants sell products across borders from Asia, is already huge and is expected to grow further, reaching an ultra-large market scale exceeding 1,100 trillion yen globally by 2032.

Currently, the main destinations for cross-border EC are the US and European markets. In these markets, the culture of "being able to return purchased products easily at any time" is fully established, making return management an unavoidable task when doing cross-border sales.

In fact, the average return rate in US and European EC markets exceeds 20%. As a result, the total amount of global returns generated by cross-border EC alone is estimated to swell to 57 trillion yen by 2032.

For cross-border EC merchants, the cost associated with returns is a serious life-or-death issue. For example, trying to send a package (about size 100 in Japan) back from a buyer in the US to Japan costs about 10,000 yen for international return shipping alone. In many cases, this shipping fee must be borne by the seller (merchant), and much of the profit is blown away by return costs. In addition, long-distance international returns make it difficult to track shipping status, delaying refunds and prompt responses to buyers, creating a vicious cycle of decreased customer satisfaction.

Strengths of 17 Countries and 22 Warehouses Worldwide. Maximizing Cost Reduction Through AI Inspection and Local Re-commerce

Our international return consolidated management solution, "Return Helper," dramatically solves these challenges.

In the conventional process, products were shipped back internationally from overseas to the home country in Asia whenever a return occurred. However, by using Return Helper, merchants can accept returns locally in the destination country. This significantly reduces the time and cost associated with international returns and increases buyer satisfaction through quick refund processing.

Our service currently has 22 partner warehouses in 17 countries worldwide and provides cloud software to manage them centrally. We are fully compatible with global platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Shopify, which are the main battlegrounds for cross-border EC, covering almost all major US and European countries.

When returned products arrive at local warehouses, they are processed efficiently through the following steps:
First, rapid intake (inspection) utilizing AI. The AI automatically reads information such as recipient names and addresses written on shipping labels and reflects them in the system immediately.
Second, strong support for local "re-commerce (resale and liquidation)." Instead of sending returned products back to Asia, the AI recommends the best resale routes in the local market where the products are located.

We provide high-resolution images of actual products to determine resale possibilities, along with shipping discount menus. Merchants can choose the best processing option—such as local resale (e.g., restocking to Amazon FBA), local recycling, or local disposal—according to their preferences and product conditions. As a result, we succeed in re-commercing (liquidating) more than 80% of monthly returned products locally.

In addition, for D2C brands using Shopify, we provide a free self-service return app where buyers can apply for returns and automatically obtain return shipping labels, realizing complete automation (self-service) of return reception.

Global Achievements Exceeding 1200 Companies. Pursuing Further Potential by Developing High-Value Japanese Merchants

Our business model is based on our record of receiving about 70,000 returned items monthly worldwide. We receive a fee of 10 USD per returned item, of which 26% is our gross profit.

Currently, we have about 1,200 paid contract merchants globally, and the number of processed returns grows steadily at an average monthly rate of 2%. About 70% of all returned products are destined for the US, the largest EC market.

While we have grown with Chinese merchants as our main customers, we have entered the Japanese and Korean markets in the past year. In the Japanese market, where we started operations just last summer, we have already acquired more than 60 merchants.

Since products sold from Japan via cross-border EC tend to be high-priced items—such as traditional crafts, brand products, and high-performance devices—the allowable cost per return item is high, resulting in higher average fees paid to Return Helper. Japan is a market with very high profitability and potential, and we plan to focus on it further in the future.

Our strength lies in our founding team, who are deeply familiar with global platforms like eBay, international logistics, and ERP industries. In addition to our founder, Roy Van, I also have experience working in the cross-border EC business for 12 years at eBay Japan and leading the launch of Japanese business at GOAT Group. By combining this expertise and network, we will accelerate our growth as an indispensable return infrastructure for merchants worldwide.

Q&A / Feedback

Commentator (Mr. Mori): Mr. Shibata, thank you very much for your wonderful presentation, which focused on the pain point of "returns" with high resolution for cross-border EC merchants. Having served as an outside director of a cross-border EC support company myself, I understand how serious this international return issue is.

I would like to ask: you are currently focusing on Asian merchants, but what is your client portfolio by country (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, ASEAN) and which markets are you focusing on in the future? Also, do you target merchants directly (like D2C brands), or do you coordinate with EC support providers? Please share your views on sales expansion.

Mr. Shibata: Thank you for your questions.
First, regarding our client portfolio, currently about 60% are merchants from the Chinese region (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan). To scale as a global cross-border EC infrastructure, capturing the Chinese market, the world's largest exporting country, is essential for long-term growth, which explains this composition.

Against this background, Japan and Korea are new markets entered within the past year and are the areas where we will focus most to drive expansion. In addition, we are starting to explore the Australian market this year, gradually expanding our cover areas and merchants.

Regarding our approach to targets, we utilize both direct approach to merchants (such as D2C brands) and alliances with surrounding EC support providers.
However, in the cross-border EC business, companies tend to hide information about top-selling products and logistics know-how, and not many companies publicly state that they are doing cross-border EC. Therefore, it is very difficult to build a target list and conduct outbound sales.

Thus, our basic strategy is to collaborate deeply with platform operators like Amazon and Shopify, or their official partners (support providers), and have them introduce merchants facing return issues. In the future, we aim to establish Product-Led Growth (PLG) where merchants introduce our service spontaneously through word-of-mouth or app stores.

Mr. Mori: I see. Since information sharing is low in the industry, the strategy of acquiring clients through alliances with platforms and partners and moving toward PLG is very rational.

Cross-border EC will grow, and providing an end-to-end scheme including local resale (re-commerce), disposal, and recycling—which is extremely difficult for a single merchant to do—is very attractive. I am looking forward to your future growth. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shibata: Thank you. We will expand our warehouse network and functions globally to become a reliable partner for cross-border EC merchants.