Extend Shopper Operations: The Next Step in Unified Commerce

The expectations of modern ecommerce shoppers continue to evolve and elevate. They want a buying experience that feels personal, intuitive, and frictionless. They want proactive support that resolves issues before shoppers consider them issues. They want to be treated like VIPs.

And when something goes wrong, they want a quick resolution without the runaround. A lost package, a broken product, a shirt that didn’t meet their expectations — customer loyalty increasingly hinges on resolving these situations seamlessly.

Retailers anxious to meet these expectations often cobble together a stack of disconnected tools: one platform for returns, another for order tracking, and yet another for fraud mitigation (to name a few). The result is often siloed data, inconsistent customer experiences, and an operational burden that grows heavier by the year.

Extend has flipped this script with our new Shopper Operations platform, a fresh option for brands looking to ditch the inefficiencies of a disjointed tech stack. 

What Is Shopper Operations?

Shopper Operations is Extend's new, unified platform that brings a suite of essential customer experience tools together under one roof.

The platform includes Extend Shipping and Product Protection, alongside delivery (order tracking and claim automation) and returns & exchanges. Each of those product features is powered by proprietary Shopper Intelligence, a behavior-based decision engine that automates customer segmentation and reduces fraud and abuse.

Besides an integrated tech stack, Shopper Operations allows merchants to deliver the VIP experience today's shoppers expect. At the same time, the platform helps merchants reduce fraud, control operational costs, and build the kind of loyalty that drives long-term revenue.

Here's a closer look at what Shopper Operations brings to the table.

The Shopper Operations Platform

Shopper Operations has three major components. Each delivers an experience shoppers want while absorbing data that can make future brand interactions more personalized.

#1: Delivery

Shipping can often create anxiety for both shoppers and merchants. WISMO ("Where is my order?") requests, alongside issues of lost, stolen, or damaged packages, clog customer service queues and frustrate customers if they have to wait too long for a resolution.

Shopper Operations tackles this problem head-on with three tightly integrated delivery tools.

Shipping Protection 

This core Extend product lets merchants offer coverage for lost, stolen, or damaged packages. Most often, merchants offer shipping protection as a purchasable add-on at checkout, but many offer it as a complimentary value-add for VIP customers.

Shoppers who have shipping protection also enjoy automated claim resolution. They file a claim online, and most receive a decision within seconds. Gone is the loyalty-killing back-and-forth often required to resolve delivery issues.

Online retailer Jomashop added Extend Shipping Protection and achieved an impressive 36% attach rate. That represents the average amount of customer orders that included shipping protection. What’s even better: they saved $600,000 in fulfillment costs thanks to Extend Shipping Protection.

The moral of the story? A good third of Jomashop shoppers wanted — and were given — peace of mind, and the company wasn’t forced to eat six figures’ worth of package replacement costs.

Order Tracking 

Extend Order Tracking keeps customers in the loop with branded tracking pages, elegant email shipping updates, and SMS notifications that reflect your store's identity.

Few post-purchase interactions get more customer attention than order-tracking messages. McKinsey surveyed 1,000 US consumers in 2024 and found that approximately “50% of respondents say they track the status of orders to ensure that the shipment is progressing and remains on time.”

Because they get so many customer eyeballs, order-tracking messages are perfect for getting shoppers to think about their next order. Putting a promotional offer right after the order-tracking link helps nurture follow-up sales, and you’ll reduce inbound WISMO support requests at the same time.

Claim Automation

When something bad happens to a delivery, customers don’t want to deal with the annoying back-and-forth that comes with traditional claim filing. In fact, time to resolve has a direct impact on customer loyalty and satisfaction. According to research by Forrester, customers are 2.4x “more likely to stay when companies solve customer problems more quickly.”

Extend Claim Automation prioritizes both speedy resolution and customer satisfaction with 24/7 self-service filing. Customers benefit from a streamlined, hassle-free process, and brands get to eliminate much of the manual labor involved with claim resolution. Plus, claim automation has built-in fraud detection to help prevent bad actors from taking advantage of customer-friendly policies.

#2: Returns & Exchanges

Shopper Operations is a solution to the great challenge of ecommerce returns: delighting customers with the returns experience while keeping operational costs low. 

Shoppers want free returns, but because returns cost retailers money — they were projected to return $849.9 billion worth of merchandise in 2025 — free returns aren’t possible across the board. Returns erode sales revenue thanks to reverse logistics costs and product inspection. And if you botch the returns experience, you may forfeit the money spent on acquiring the customer attempting the return.

Shopper Operations transforms the returns experience, encouraging money-saving exchanges in place of costly product returns. Rather than make a return the default, exchanges allow shoppers to swap a size, choose a different color, or select an entirely new product. The sale (and its revenue) stays in your ecosystem while the customer stays engaged.

#3: Product Protection

Extend has offered product protection since entering the scene in 2019, and Shopper Operations brings that revenue-generating tool into the unified platform.

Product protection can safeguard products from accidental damage. Depending on the item, protection can cover damage stemming from pet stains, a spilled glass of wine, or a drop in the bathtub, among other mishaps. 

Shoppers purchase product protection at checkout, and merchants like you receive a portion of each product protection sale. Average order value as well as customer peace of mind increases. Similar to shipping protection, product protection holders enjoy the convenience of automated claim resolution.

Extend Product Protection is a powerful conversion lever. When Monster Transmission embedded product protection on eligible purchases, the brand saw a 120% increase in conversions on those items.

Shopper Intelligence: Shopper Operations’ Secret Sauce

Each of the tools above is powerful on its own. But what differentiates Shopper Operations from the competition is the added layer of Shopper Intelligence.

Shopper Intelligence is Extend's AI-powered engine that applies behavioral insights to every decision made across Shopper Operations. The combination of a merchant's own customer data and Extend's industry-level data powers these insights.

For brands, the greatest practical impact of Shopper Intelligence is advanced customer segmentation. Shopper Intelligence classifies customers based on behavior, history, and intent. Shopper Operations then applies the right policies, experiences, and incentives to each customer segment in real time. Now merchants can protect their best customers with tailored experiences and reduce abuse without penalizing legitimate shoppers.

Consider returns. Shopper Intelligence can quickly distinguish between a loyal shopper who's made 50 purchases and a first-time buyer with a history of return abuse. The former might qualify for a free return, while the latter gets blocked from initiating a return or exchange altogether. 

You just applied dynamic, behavior-driven policies that protect your margins while filtering out bad actors before they cost you money.

Enhance your ecommerce tech stack with Shopper Operations

Shopper Operations is the unified-commerce platform that elevates your shopper experience at scale. Personalized policies apply consistently across every touchpoint. You’ll spend less time managing integrations and support tickets, and more time growing your business.

Even better? Shopper Operations is an option for brands in every product category.

Ready to see what Shopper Operations can do for your business? Get in touch with the Extend team to learn more.