The Indian commerce industry grapples with the complexities of waste and resource management, often overlooking the realm of reverse inventory. However, amidst these challenges, Blubirch stands at the forefront of innovative reverse logistics and sustainable commerce solutions. With a focus on recapturing product value and reducing waste in the reverse supply chain, the company offers a comprehensive suite of services that span data erasure, device repair, and responsible recycling for various electronic devices. Blubirch's commitment to creating Social, Environmental, and Economic (SEE) value is evident in its approach to minimizing wastage and landfill, aligning with its dedication to responsible resource management.
In an interview with TheCSRUniverse, Mr. Amit Goel, Chief Business Officer, Blubirch, delves into the pivotal strategies that define the company's approach to reverse logistics and sustainable commerce. The interview highlights Blubirch's innovative solutions that recapture value from returned items while minimizing waste. From incentivizing customers to acquire partially damaged products to optimizing the reverse supply chain, Blubirch's initiatives drive efficiency and reduce environmental impact. The conversation further explores the platform's data-driven decision-making, fraud management, and the substantial success metrics that underscore their approach. Additionally, Mr. Goel sheds light on significant concerns, notably the fragmented data landscape in inventory management. He also addresses challenges concerning sustainability and efficient return processes, underlining the industry's imperative to adopt integrated technological solutions for a responsible future.
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Q&A
Q. What are the main objectives of Blubirch in driving sustainable commerce and effective inventory management?
A. Blubirch's innovative tech addresses multiple facets of reverse logistics, aiming to enhance efficiency and sustainability. It firstly tackles the erosion of value by incentivizing customers with discounted pricing in exchange for acquiring partially damaged items, thereby recapturing product value and reducing waste.
This approach minimizes the company's environmental footprint and aligns with their commitment to responsible resource management. Additionally, Blubirch's system focuses on minimizing unnecessary transportation in the reverse logistics process. By streamlining returns and optimizing shipping, the system significantly reduces the number of shipments and associated carbon emissions. This eco-conscious approach contributes to a more sustainable framework and underscores their dedication to environmental preservation.
The biggest missing piece today in effective inventory management is lack of a single view for the entire lifecycle of the product. The data is scattered across DMS, WMS, CRM, ERP and POS systems.
Blubirch system consolidates data from different sources to provide a single view to the users enabling quick, informed, and efficient decision making. The system places a strong emphasis on fraud management, utilizing advanced technologies such as nanoparticle-based QR codes and image reconciliation to ensure the authenticity of returned items. This not only prevents fraudulent practices but also promotes transparency and accountability throughout the returns process. Blubirch's system excels in handling various types of returns, facilitating efficient validation processes for different products. The system ensures that items are thoroughly inspected and validated at every stage of the logistics chain, maintaining the integrity of the reverse logistics process. Upon reaching the warehouse, the system optimizes the inversion process, systematically organizing returned products for efficient processing. This optimization contributes to the circular economy by extending the life of returned items and promoting sustainable practices.
Q. How does Blubirch ensure responsible and sustainable practices in the management of excess and returned inventory, and what impact does this have on minimizing waste and environmental impact?
A. Blubirch's business model revolves around responsible and sustainable practices in managing excess and returned inventory. It strives to minimize waste and environmental impact through efficient and effective returns management processes, thereby providing value to the clients. The primary goals include increasing the speed and value of recovery from returns by efficiently redirecting items to the best possible disposition, new users, safeguarding brand perception and avoiding channel conflict. Blubirch also drives sustainability by redirecting products to new users and responsibly recycling non-sellable products. Considering transparency, Blubirch's solution empowers clients with valuable insights to make data-driven decisions and improve their sustainability efforts.
Apart from reducing the end-to-end timelines of the products’ reverse journey by over 60%, Blubirch’s offering has enabled reduced product value erosion for its many customers and need for logistics and transportation in the entire process. Blubirch is dedicated to positively impacting the environment while delivering effective inventory management solutions.
Q. How does Blubirch's unique platform optimize the reverse supply chain, including returns management, routing and remarketing across secondary channels? What transformative benefits does this platform bring to stakeholder value?
A. Blubirch's platform optimizes reverse supply chains with algorithms and real-time data, cutting costs and boosting customer satisfaction. It minimizes transit time and damage, finding secondary markets for returns, maximizing value, and reducing losses. This approach benefits the company, partners and sustainability by extending product lifecycles and minimizing waste.
Blubirch's unique platform improves operational efficiency and reduces costs, empowering users, customers and partners. Faster returns enhance the customer experience, increasing satisfaction and ensuring better customer retention. Reselling returns aligns with sustainability and revenue generation. Data-driven insights empower informed decisions, revolutionizing the supply chain for efficiency, satisfaction, and profitability, fostering innovation.
Q. What steps does Blubirch take to ensure transparency and efficiency in the liquidation process, particularly through their B2B platform, and how does this contribute to their overall approach?
A. Blubirch's B2B platform offers a comprehensive and managed liquidation service that takes full responsibility for the entire process, ensuring a structured and efficient approach while enhancing transparency. Their curated reseller approach safeguards the seller's brand reputation and maintains product value during liquidation. The web dashboard provided by Blubirch grants sellers the complete visibility of buyers and channels, empowering them to make informed decisions and track inventory progress. By handling the tasks of finding and managing secondary market buyers and executing sales transactions, Blubirch frees up valuable management time, allowing sellers to focus on their core business operations.
Blubirch's payment model, based on a pre-agreed percentage from the realized value, aligns their incentives with the seller's success, driving them to maximize the liquidated items' value and ensure a swift and successful liquidation process. These measures contribute to Blubirch's commitment to transparency, efficiency and value creation throughout its B2B liquidation service, fostering trust and positive outcomes for all stakeholders involved.
Q. Could you provide examples of Blubirch's successful interventions in rural areas, particularly in making new-age products accessible and affordable?
A. Blubirch’s curated reseller program reaches 147 cities across 25 states in India. There are 1000s of registered buyers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. This approach of getting sellers and buyers on a common platform eliminates many middlemen and makes inventory affordable and accessible to even small retailers.
Today, almost 38% of inventory that goes via our platform goes to smaller cities and is bought by retailers with a buying capacity of less than 5 lakhs a month. Apart from this, almost 25% of returns in India are from Tier 3 and rural areas. Blubirch’s platform enables various OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ecommerce companies to handle these returns locally, unlike in the past when all these items were collected and transported to central warehouses. In short, Blubirch has successfully made many brands and new age products accessible and affordable to masses in rural areas and Tier 3 cities across the nation.
Q. In what ways does Blubirch support skill development initiatives, particularly in empowering aspiring entrepreneurs and creating livelihood opportunities?
A. Blubirch's Young Entrepreneurs Program exemplifies its active commitment to serving society and empowering aspiring entrepreneurs in India, where a significant young population seeks livelihood opportunities. By providing training, preferential rates for inventory and constant mentoring, Blubirch supports and empowers these entrepreneurs on their journey. Their efforts to reach rural areas through a widespread network of resellers in Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities make new-age products more accessible and affordable, contributing to rural development and economic growth.
Blubirch's collaboration with enterprises and the NASSCOM Foundation, offering refurbished laptops to those who cannot afford them, demonstrates the dedication to bridging the digital divide and fostering economic inclusion.
Also, Blubirch has successfully inspired and enabled many corporates to donate their assets to various schools and NGOs. While the organizations donate the assets via Blubirch, we add warranty and e-waste compliance related support to organizations as well as NGOs. Blubirch's initiatives showcase a holistic approach towards skill development, livelihood creation and societal impact, positively contributing to India's entrepreneurial ecosystem and socio-economic development.
Q. Can you elaborate on the strategic collaborations and partnerships that Blubirch has established within the retail industry to drive sustainable commerce and effective inventory management?
A. Over the last 8 years, Blubirch has collaborated with various organizations and institutional programs to help drive sustainable commerce and effective inventory management. Closely associated with NASSCOM as a member as well as a technical partner, Blubirch drove the Big Bridge program of the NASSCOM Foundation in the past.
Blubirch’s ecosystem enables various large ecommerce, modern retail and traditional retail organizations to reduce wastage, manage reverse inventory effectively and minimize environmental impact, driving sustainable commerce. Blubirch partnered and exhibited in the Recommerce Expo this year with the theme to promote sustainable commerce and circular economy.
Apart from this, Blubirch has driven many environment-related programs, including a session for various airlines facilitated by GMR at the Delhi Airport, presenting at various national conferences and leadership forums. Blubirch also has plans to partner with CIII and various other such forums to further drive sustainable commerce.
Q. Can you share specific metrics or success stories that demonstrate the positive economic and environmental impact of Blubirch's solutions? What steps can be taken to replicate this model across the industry for broader adoption and impact?
A. Over the last 8–9 years of Blubirch’s operations, we have worked with almost every major ecommerce firm, several OEMs, large retailers and modern retail organizations. Almost a million items pass through Blubirch platform every quarter and are managed using the cutting-edge technology platform of the business.
According to one of the largest ecommerce platforms, Blubirch’s platform has helped them in:
1) Increasing successful insurance claims by over 30% since implementation of the Blubirch platform
2) RTV (return to vendor) of 25% more items compared to earlier time.
3) Reduce inventory average stay time at their warehouse from 103 days to 42 days.
4) Recover around 16% more value from liquidation compared to earlier times.
5) Reduce report making efforts from 8-man days to 6-man hours
Today, in India, not much focus is given to reverse inventory. Except for a few e-commerce giants, none of the organizations have reverse inventory management as a dedicated function in their organization. It is often a shared responsibility combined with other primary responsibilities. This is very surprising since any cost saved or increased revenue from reduction of reverse or efficient management and liquidation of returned items adds directly to the bottom line of the companies. For broader adoption and impact, organizations need to identify that reverse/returns inventory is a real problem that needs a focused approach and have someone with reverse inventory management as their primary responsibility. Also, while we see many ERPs, WMS and IMS to manage forward inventory, we do not see any dedicated system for reverse inventory. Reverse inventory is very different from forward inventory and force fitting a forward system on reverse is a big mistake.
Organizations need a specialized system for managing reverse inventory. This will enable them to increase the bottom line with a lower cost of ownership.
Q. How does Blubirch envision the future of sustainable commerce, and what expansion and enhancement initiatives are being pursued to drive this vision forward?
A. We are dedicated to shaping a sustainable future, particularly in the tech sector. Our core principles centre on embracing the ideals of a circular economy, designing products and materials for enduring use, repair, refurbishment, and recycling. We actively champion extended producer responsibility (EPR), urging manufacturers to take full ownership of end-of-life product management, thereby fostering ecofriendly designs and sustainable practices.
Additionally, we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint by minimizing the reverse cycle timelines and enhancing our logistics and supply chain. We explore eco-conscious transportation options and collaborate with environmentally aware suppliers. Data security is paramount, as sensitive information is meticulously wiped or destroyed before IT assets are recycled or refurbished.
We contribute positively to society by providing jobs, supporting education programs, and partnering with local organizations to heighten awareness about environmental concerns. As an innovation driver, we invest in research, exploring cutting-edge recycling technologies and collaborating with tech manufacturers for greener product alternatives. Through public campaigns and proactive advocacy, we seek to inspire wider adoption of sustainable practices. While expanding globally, sustainability remains our guiding principle across all endeavours.
