LUMEN & CO.
Internal memo

To:      Ops analysis
From:    Dana Whitlock, Head of Customer Operations
Date:    6 October 2025
Subject: Q3 returns — one-pager needed for Thursday

I need a one-page read on Q3 returns for the ops review on Thursday at 10.
Three things and nothing else: what is driving returns, which product line
is the actual problem, and one recommendation you would defend in the room.
Merchandising and Finance will both be there, so keep it to a page.

The returns log is attached. Fair warning, it has had several hands on it.
Priya built it by hand through the summer and handed it to Ravi on the 18th
of August while she was out, and from that point it has been assembled from
the warehouse system export rather than typed up week by week. The grand
total at the bottom stopped calculating when someone inserted rows and
nobody has re-cut it, so do not lean on it.

For context on where I currently sit: we shipped a bit over 24,000 units in
the quarter and returns ran a touch under 9%, which is worse than Q2 but not
alarming on its own. My working theory is that the gilet zips are the whole
story — QC flagged a batch in August and I have been saying it ever since.
Push back if the numbers do not support it. I would rather be wrong on
Wednesday than in the room on Thursday.

Two loose ends if you have time. The scarf came back hard on the marketplace
channel before we swapped the listing photo, and I do not know whether that
has settled. And the belt numbers for the last week of September were still
open when Ravi closed the file.

Dana