0.0%
Return-rate delta vs prior quarter — flagship categories.
VOL. 01
·
RETURNS · REDUCED
·
BENGALURU, IN
PG. 001
Returns, reduced. Decisions, data‑led.
▸ An operations & supply-chain manager at AJIO — turning a million customer-return signals into measurable wins for Reliance Retail's e-commerce business. MBA in Ops & Business Analytics. B.Tech in Biotech. Lifelong pattern-spotter.
PGDM · Ops & Analytics
AJIO · Reliance Retail
★3rd Rank · MBA, UBS
Anushreya
Returns · Reduction · Mgr
§ 01 — Approach
PG. 002
The cheapest return
is the one that never ships.
Every return is a story written backwards — a customer's expectation against a product, a size chart, a last-mile route. My work begins where that story breaks. I listen to the data, isolate the cause, and translate it into a fix that warehouse, catalogue and CX teams can actually ship.
At AJIO I lead initiatives that pair quantitative analysis with operational craft — running root-cause sprints across categories, unblocking process bottlenecks, and turning what is often dismissed as "the cost of doing e-commerce" into a tractable engineering problem.
— Bengaluru, still curious.
- i.Quantify the leak before sealing it.
- ii.Treat returns as feedback, not failure.
- iii.Ship fixes that survive a Monday morning.
§ 02 — In numbers
PG. 003
0
SKUs corrected — size / fit metadata.
0.0k
Return reasons coded & clustered.
0%
Faster RCA cycle on flagged categories.
She doesn't argue with returns — she interrogates them.
— A category lead, AJIO
§ 03 — Anatomy of a return
PG. 004
A live cut from the dashboard
Where the 34% goes — and what it costs.
pre-purchase
fulfilment
retained
Stage 01
Orders placed
100%
Stage 02
Returned —34%
34%
Stage 03
Retained +66%
66%
Where I plug in
Diagnostics → owners → weekly KPI cadence. Each named segment has a fix list, an accountable team, and a number watched every Monday.
Target
−8.4%
QoQ
Pre-purchase causes
Fixable upstream — catalogue, size charts, imagery, fit guidance.
Fulfilment causes
Fixable in the lane — packaging, last-mile, QC, RTO recovery.
Where I plug in
Diagnostics, owners, dashboards, and the weekly cadence that holds it.
§ 3·5 — Fraud & anomaly detection
PG. 004b
Beyond the honest return
Not every return is what it claims to be.
A meaningful slice of returns aren't customer-fit issues — they're fraud: empty-box returns, swap-and-return scams, serial offenders, wardrobing, address-cluster abuse. I run the analytical layer that flags these patterns before they hit P&L.
- i. Anomaly detection on return-rate, value, frequency & reason mix
- ii. Customer-cohort scoring — RFM, return-velocity, dispute history
- iii. Address & pincode clustering for organised abuse
- iv. Reason-vs-evidence checks: claimed defect vs QC photo trail
- v. Hand-off to RVP & risk teams with a tight, audited brief
Returns/order ratio · last 14 days
baseline
flagged
Baseline4.2%
Today9.8%
Flagged orders147
Confidence0.92
-
#RTN-08214
Empty-box pattern · footwear Customer ID c-93*** · 6 returns / 90d · same pin clusterHIGH
-
#RTN-08221
Swap-and-return suspected · denim QC photo mismatch · serial number alteredMED
-
#RTN-08240
Wardrobing — repeat offender 4× high-AOV apparel returned within 48h, tags reattachedHIGH
-
#RTN-08267
Address-cluster anomaly · BLR-560034 Spike +5.6σ above pincode baselineLOW
-
#RTN-08291
Reason-vs-evidence mismatch Claim: "wrong item" · evidence trail: original PO matchMED
§ 04 — Experience
PG. 005
-
Jul 2025 → now CURRENT
Returns Reduction Manager
A. AJIO.com · Reliance Retail · Bengaluru
Owning the returns-reduction charter end-to-end. Building the weekly diagnostic that pairs return-reason data with category P&L, then driving the fix list across catalogue, supply and CX teams. Run the fraud & anomaly layer on top — flagging empty-box scams, wardrobing, swap-returns and pincode-cluster abuse before they bleed margin.
-
Apr 2024 → Jul 2025
Management Trainee
A. AJIO.com · Reliance Retail · Bengaluru
Rotated through e-commerce operations — building the analytical muscle on returns, customer-feedback loops and process metrics that I now run on.
-
May 2023 → Jul 2023
Management Intern
W. Writer Business Services · Mumbai
Summer internship across business services workflows — first taste of process documentation and structured problem-solving in a corporate setting.
§ 05 — Capabilities
PG. 006
Returns reduction & process optimisation
From symptom to systemic fix — building the case, the metric, and the owner.
Data-driven decision making
Pairing customer-return signals with category P&L to pick fights worth winning.
Cross-functional project leadership
Operating the seam between catalogue, supply, CX and tech without dropping it.
Root-cause analysis & KPI tracking
Five-whys, fishbone, SQL, and the boring rituals that keep the dial moving.
E-commerce & retail operations
Fluent in the lane — orders, last mile, RTO, RVP, NPS, and what each costs.
Fraud & anomaly detection
Spotting the returns that aren't returns — empty-box, wardrobing, swap-and-return, pincode clusters. Stats > gut feel.
Off the clock
Reading on behavioural ops · long walks in Cubbon · spreadsheet hygiene as therapy.
§ 06 — Education
PG. 007
2022 — 2024
Universal Business School
PGDM · Operations & Supply Chain
Minor — Business Analytics
3rd
RANK
★ University Honours · Class of 2024
Graduated third in the MBA cohort.
Awarded for academic distinction across the PGDM programme — Top 1% of graduating class at Universal Business School.
Where the analytical lens got formalised — supply-chain modelling, ops research, and the analytics minor that now runs in the background of every returns deck.
2017 — 2021
Amity University, Noida
B.Tech · Biotechnology
Four years of lab notebooks taught me what a controlled variable looks like. It turns out a returns RCA is just a wet-lab experiment with worse lighting.
§ 07 — Get in touch
PG. 008