Most of the value in a returns program is lost before anyone sees it on a P&L. I help consumer electronics, appliance and home products brands fix the decisions made at intake, so good product gets recovered and stops getting written off.
Every unit that comes back needs a fast, correct routing decision. That call sets the recovery value for everything downstream.
On a throw from the outfield, the cutoff man has a split second to decide whether to relay the ball home, cut it off or send it to another base. Make the right call and the runner is out. Make the wrong one and the run scores.
Returns run on the same logic. A unit shows up at the dock and someone decides where it goes next. When that decision is made on bad data or no data, product that could have been resold at a strong price ends up in a liquidation lot or a landfill.
These show up in almost every program I walk into, whatever the category or the size of the brand.
Condition, reason code and serial data are captured late or not at all, so there's no real time picture of what's coming back or why.
Units that could be tested, repaired and resold get routed to scrap or write off before anyone checks what they are worth.
When one channel absorbs the overflow, recovery rates drop and product shows up in places the brand never approved.
Poorly graded resale hurts reviews and pricing. Good material goes to landfill, and extra freight adds carbon nobody planned for.
I map the full flow from customer to final disposition, find where value drops out and put a dollar figure on each leak so leadership can prioritize.
Clear rules for what gets resold, refurbished, harvested for parts or recycled, set by SKU, condition and channel economics.
Defining what gets captured at the dock and building the reporting your supply chain and finance teams need to act on it.
Scoping, sourcing and vetting 3PL, remanufacturing and recommerce partners. I write the RFP, run the evaluation and sit on your side of the table.
Standing up refurbished and open box channels that recover margin while protecting brand standards and new product pricing.
I start where the product lands. Your team, your partners and your data, looked at together, so the diagnosis matches what actually happens on the dock.
Each decision point gets a recovery number attached to it, so you can see which fixes pay back first and what it costs to leave things as they are.
New disposition rules, the right partners and reporting that holds people to it, put in place with your team and tracked until the numbers move.
I spent 12 years in professional baseball as a relief pitcher and reached the majors with the Cincinnati Reds. For the last 15 years I've worked in reverse logistics and recommerce, building enterprise programs for consumer electronics, appliance and home products brands, along with fashion, apparel and beauty.
I've opened accounts from a cold start, built commercial teams from scratch and seen the same disposition mistakes repeat across categories. The CutOff Man exists to help brands catch those mistakes while there's still value to recover.
I'll tell you what they should be worth and what it takes to get there. Thirty minutes, your numbers, no pitch deck.
Send your details first if you'd rather I come to the call with a point of view. It takes about two minutes.