How Bird&Be Turned Post Purchase Into a Retention Strategy

When Breanna Hughes left a head-of-product role in tech to co-found Bird&Be, a DTC brand helping people on their journey to and through parenthood, she didn't expect returns to become a strategic priority. Bird&Be's category isn't high return volume, like apparel. Return rates are naturally low. And yet, by the end of 2025, returns had quietly become the single most-cited pain point on her customer support team.

"It actually was around 20-25% of our customer support team volume and time spent was processing returns."

The process was almost entirely manual: 3PL handoffs, back-and-forth emails, printer-bound return labels, and a lot of waiting. Worst of all, it was happening at some of the most emotionally charged moments in a customer's life, navigating pregnancy, postpartum, pregnancy loss, and more.

So when Route, Bird&Be's existing package protection partner, acquired Frate Returns in January 2026 and rolled returns into the same platform, the math suddenly worked.

A returns problem hiding in a low-return business

Bird&Be is a subscription-first business, about 75% of revenue comes from monthly subscription orders, which means retention isn't a nice-to-have, it's the model. In their category, "returns" usually aren't really returns. They're life events.

"If someone becomes pregnant, there's a different product, or they give birth, there's a different product that they would need to switch to. And so, we want to make that as seamless as possible."

A clunky exchange flow at the moment a customer announces a pregnancy doesn't just become a typical customer support issue, it’s a critical moment for another human being at a vulnerable time.

Why Bird&Be moved their tech roadmap up six months

Breanna had evaluated other returns platforms before. The verdict: the ROI math didn't work for a brand with naturally low return volume. Standalone return portals priced for high-volume brands made every business case feel forced.

Route changed the equation by offering an entire post-purchase platform, offering returns in the same platform Bird&Be was already using for package protection.

"That's genius from a product and a tech stack perspective… It made it so much easier from an ROI perspective, from a customer perspective, and it didn't mean that we had to have that high return volume for it to make sense."

The result: Bird&Be launched Route Returns roughly six months earlier than they had planned.

What's changed since launch

• First response times on return-related tickets are down significantly.
• CSAT on return-related tickets is up.
• Messages per ticket are down. Fewer back-and-forths, more self-serve.
• Customers without a printer can now drop off a return at Canada Post with just a QR code.
• Over $122K saved in refunds and replacements on protected orders

The bigger lesson: returns are the brand

Breanna's advice for other operators is direct: stop benchmarking the return decision purely on return volume.

"It is a retention mechanism. It is a first impression… it really changes people's opinions of your business.

For Bird&Be, the returns flow is also a listening tool. Exchange reasons feed into product feedback. And in the most sensitive moments - a miscarriage, a loss - the data lets the team send a handwritten postcard on flowered paper that the customer can plant in honor of the pregnancy.

That type of human connection and care is foundational to Bird&Be’s goal to support their customers on every step of the fertility journey. And it's only possible when the operational work gets out of the way.

"You probably need to do it a little bit sooner than you think, for the sake of your customers, because the reality is, there's high expectations, there's a high bar, set typically by an Amazon."