The Circular CX Framework

Circular initiatives

Many sustainable initiatives fail to deliver their intended impact because they lack consumer engagement, brand alignment or both.

With a frictionless experience

It doesn’t matter how impactful ideas are. If customers can’t understand or easily use them, they will struggle to scale to the point that justifies the investment.

Increase revenue and impact

When you get the experience right, sustainable initiatives are not just good for the planet. They can also have a positive impact on revenue, from acquisition to conversion to retention.

Why circular initiatives fail

Initiatives like takeback, resale or repair can all help businesses to deliver on sustainability goals and drive revenue.

Yet for retails brands, these schemes live and die with customer engagement. If your customers can't find them or aren't motivated to use them, then they will always struggle to realise their full impact.

When sustainability features are disconnected from the main customer journey, engagement suffers, and so does revenue.
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After reviewing nearly 1000 ecommerce websites, we have identified common issues such as:

Circular services buried in footer links or separate portals
Takeback schemes only communicated post-purchase
Complex processes that require customers to change too many behaviors at once
No clear value exchange to drive participation

When you get CX right, circularity drives growth

Research shows circular initiatives can deliver tangible ROI when designed with customer experience at the center:

Takeback

90% of customers who received credit for using takeback went on to purchase, making it an effective acquisition channel.

Resale

Branded resale marketplaces generated up to 10% incremental revenue, even when the marketplace itself is peer to peer only and generates no income for the brand

Messaging

Pre-purchase circularity messaging increased ATV by up to 10%, for a major sportswear brand.

Why we need a customer experience framework for circularity

Circular Economy frameworks from organisaitions like Ellen Macarthur Foundation and WBCSD exist to help businesses to reduce their environmental impact in a structured and measurable way.

Yet for retail brands seeking to implement more sustainable and circular activity across their value chain, there are two common challenges with many of these frameworks:

The ROI story is unbalanced

Circular retail solutions have been shown to deliver substantial incremental revenue for brands that embrace them.

Yet they are often positioned as ESG costs with little commercial upside beyond material recovery or risk avoidance.

Positioning them in this way can make buy-in from marketing and ecommerce teams more challenging.

Consumer behaviour is missing

Circular initiatives need customer enegagement to be successful, yet the role of the consumer is often downplayed in circular economy frameworks.

When present, practical guidance tends to focus on marketing and communications tactics.

The mechanics of driving lasting behaviour change - customer experience design - are often explicitly excluded from the frameworks.

Introducing the Circular CX Framework

We created this framework after extensive research into the challenges facing sustainable retail online. We spent 2 years understanding what was behind leading brands' success and the challenges holding others back.

Our Circular CX Framework takes a customer-centric approach to circularity, in order to bridge the revenue gap between operational success and customer engagement.

By applying circular economy principles to customer experience design across the end-to-end shopper journey, we can help drive repeat revenue and keep value in the loop.

How it works across the customer journey

Awareness

Integrate sustainable messaging into off-platform comms in a way that is aligned with brand positioning.

Consideration

Consistent and transparent messaging around credentials and commitments that is easy to find without being "in your face"

Evaluation

Use UX features and product information to support sustainable choices

Purchase

Highlight the value exchange of circular services at checkout

Post-purchase

Use timely communications around care, maintenance, and end-of-life

Loyalty

Create rewarding circular services that keep customers in your brand ecosystem

Our independent research

We've developed our framework from a deep dive review of leading sustainable brands across the retail industry. Through research, conversations and audits, we have identified the patterns, friction points, and best practices in customer experience design that drive circular successess.

We have also conducted a large-scale assessment testing the framework's principles across 1,000 fashion retail sites, to validate our findings and benchmark circular CX maturity.

Key findings included:

20% of retailers positioned themselves as sustainable, but less than half of those followed through with circularity
16% of retailers had implemented a circular scheme, yet only 1% had integrated it with loyalty
Only half of the retailers with a ciruclar scheme made it easy to find and use online

Where does your brand sit?

We have defined a 5 stage Circular CX maturity model, to help businesses understand their progress and define strategic direction.

Most brands are still at Level 1 and 2. Moving beyond this requires intentional CX design, not just more sustainability investment.

Linear: Supply chain info is superficial. No impact reporting or circular services communicated online.
Emerging: Impact reporting exists but is disconnected. Circular services only communicated post-purchase or in-store.
Connected: Sustainable choices are signposted. Circular services visible on homepage and incentivized through loyalty.
Integrated: Circularity seamlessly embedded across the journey. Unified data guides decisions and reduces friction.
Regenerative: Customers actively participate in closed-loop value recovery. Growth decoupled from consumption.

Not sure where to start?

With a CX Audit we can help you understand how your digital touchpoints are performing, where customers are getting stuck, and where value is leaving the loop.

Over just a few days, we'll conduct a detailed review of your customer journey, identifying opportunities to improve engagement, usability, value retention and growth.

We'll then work with you to shape these into specific briefs for further action.

Find out more

Download the full playbook

Want to dive deeper into the framework, see detailed examples, and access our complete measurement approach?
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‍Download the Circular CX Playbook - 26 pages covering:

Detailed framework explanation and principles
Journey optimization examples across every touchpoint
Measurement framework for circular ROI
Complete maturity model with recommended actions
Case studies and research findings

Enter your details below to receive the full playbook.