For many of us, returns on most online purchases seem fairly straightforward. When you buy something you’d like to return, the retailer might give you a label and drop-off information, along with instructions on claiming your refund. Yet the process is often a more complex and expensive one for retailers, especially for smaller brands. It’s nearly impossible for these retailers to get accurate revenue when a purchase can be returned at any point in a 6-8 week window.

 

Enter Seel. Co-founders Zack and Bill recognized this problem and wanted to give online retailers a new option: have customers pay Seel a fee, and Seel will handle all return requests and refund payouts. Think of it as insurance for your purchase. Customers get a number of assurances, and companies get to keep the revenue even if a package is returned. As with any kind of insurance, Seel operates with an inherent risk by underwriting all these purchases. It attempts to offset this risk using AI—the probability of a purchase’s return from a given retailer is analyzed before offering any assurances for a fee. With the continued boom of e-commerce, we’re curious to see if Seel can scale to keep up with the demand and whether its solution is in fact the one the online retail industry at large needs.