Pepijn co-founded It Goes Forward in 2023 alongside Carl van Heijst and Tim Stribos. His background combines engineering and product development with technical experience in e-commerce. At IGF he leads technical strategy, including ERP integration architecture, API design, and the OpenReturn open-source protocol initiative.
He works closely with retailer IT teams during onboarding and is the technical point of contact for enterprise integration scoping.
Areas of expertise
- ERP integration patterns
- API and webhook architecture
- Operations and reverse logistics
- Technical due diligence for retailers
- OpenReturn protocol
Articles
By Pepijn
Technical14 min readHow peer-to-peer return forwarding integrates with your ERP
The make-or-break technical question in any peer-to-peer routing evaluation: how does it actually integrate with the ERP? Three patterns work in practice across the major systems, none requiring custom development. A reference for IT directors and controllers.
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Education13 min readPeer-to-peer returns: what they are, how they work, and what they mean for fashion retailers
An emerging return model routes returns directly from one customer to the next without warehouse processing. This article explains the mechanism, where it fits, where it does not, and how to evaluate it as one option among several.
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Operations12 min readHow to prepare your operations team for the new returns reality
Operations teams that have run returns the same way for years now face higher volumes, regulatory pressure, capacity constraints, and environmental accountability simultaneously. The teams that adapt fastest gain real advantage.
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Sustainability12 min readHow to reduce CO₂ emissions from e-commerce returns
Return-related emissions are a substantial part of fashion's environmental footprint. The reduction levers are: cut return volume, route returns more efficiently when they happen, minimise packaging waste, and report what is actually measurable rather than what sounds impressive.
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Operations11 min readHow to reduce your online returns: a practical guide for fashion retailers
Fashion retailers face return rates of 30 to 40% in Europe. Here are the most effective ways to bring those rates down: better sizing data, accurate photography, honest descriptions, smarter review surfacing, and operational changes to the return process itself.
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