How Guardian Sports Used Automated Returns to Scale After Going Viral with the NFL

A safety innovation born on the sidelines

When Jake Hanson’s parents sat in the stands during his middle school football games, they heard something that haunted them: the crack of two helmets colliding on the field. With decades of experience in material science, they couldn’t help but wonder—why wasn’t anyone doing something about this?

That question led to Guardian Sports, founded in 2010 with a mission to make athletes safer without taking them out of the game. Their flagship product, the Guardian Cap, is a soft-shell helmet cover that reduces impact forces. Simple concept. Game-changing results.

“The NFL saw through their research a 52% reduction in athlete concussions for those wearing the Guardian Cap during that first season,” said Jake Hanson, now the company’s Chief Operating Officer. “After that, the product just kind of exploded.”

When the NFL calls, you say yes

Guardian Sports spent years building grassroots adoption, starting with college programs like South Carolina and Clemson. Then came 2017, when they won the NFL Head Health Tech Challenge. Five years later, Hanson’s parents got a call on the way back from church.

“The NFL said, ‘Hey, in three weeks, we need you to supply Guardian Caps to every single team. Can you do it?'” Hanson recalled.

That decision transformed the company. Today, Guardian Caps are worn by NFL players, 85% of Power Four college teams, and hundreds of thousands of high school and youth athletes. The company has expanded into lacrosse balls manufactured in the USA, multi-sport headbands, turf infill that keeps fields 30 degrees cooler, and a new chin strap that reduces impact by up to 35%.

But with explosive growth came explosive operational challenges—particularly as consumer orders flooded in.

Three hundred orders a day and counting

The NFL exposure didn’t just validate the product. It drove a surge in direct-to-consumer sales that the small Atlanta-based team wasn’t prepared for.

“There has been an uptick in direct-to-consumer because of our exposure with the NFL,” said Anna Branon, Senior Operations Manager. “We’re getting a lot more online purchases than we ever had before.”

During peak season—April through mid-September—the numbers are staggering: 300 to 400 orders per day. 

“July and August are absolutely chaotic here,” Branon said.

The problem? Guardian Sports was still doing everything manually.

“We were just going into FedEx.com and generating all of our labels that way,” Branon explained. “I was manually putting in every single order, printing everything out, going into FedEx.com, generating a label, walking it out. There was just a lot of room for error—too much manual work.”

The pace wasn’t sustainable.

A new product line made things worse

The Guardian Cap is one-size-fits-all, which meant returns were rare. But as the company expanded its product line to include items with sizes and colors, everything changed.

“With our flagship product, you’re not really getting a lot of returns or exchanges,” Branon said. “But as we added more products to our wheelhouse, we were like, ‘Wait, we need something to help us with this.'”

The manual returns process was crushing them. Every return required endless back-and-forth with customers, manual data entry, and careful tracking to ensure inventory made it back into the right locations.

“A single return probably would take about 15 minutes—just taking it in, checking it to make sure it qualifies for return, counting it, and then putting it back in the system,” said Maddy Duncan, Procurement Analyst. “And you can’t just completely have your sole focus on returns.”

For a team managing 300+ daily orders, 15-minute returns were unsustainable.

Finding a solution that plays nice with Shopify

Hanson’s approach to solving operational challenges is simple: remove barriers for his people with the best available technology.

The company had already moved to Shopify Plus for ecommerce—about 80% of orders flow through the platform. But fulfillment was still archaic.

“We would take a package, log in, input the address, copy and rewrite everything,” Hanson said. “When you have 300 to 400 orders at once, you cannot physically do that one by one.”

Guardian Sports evaluated their options. They needed automation. They needed a seamless Shopify integration. And they needed an automated returns solution that would take the customer service burden off their small team.

“We looked at some competitors, but no one has the relationship with us that ShipStation does,” Branon said. “We already have a great relationship with our account manager, so it just kind of felt like a no-brainer.”

The Shopify-ShipStation integration was critical.

Getting the two platforms connected was painless.

“The integration between Shopify and ShipStation was super easy and flawless—one of probably the easiest things we’ve connected,” Branon added.

Automated returns that run themselves

ShipStation Returns and Exchanges transformed how Guardian Sports handles exchanges and refunds. The automated returns portal gives customers a familiar, self-service experience while eliminating the back-and-forth that was consuming the operations team.

The results in the warehouse were immediate.

“After implementing ShipStation Returns, my life got a lot easier because it took away a lot of the double-checking,” Duncan said. “I would have to manually receive this inventory back into these locations, and it’s always good to double-check. But now that I have a system that’s streamlined it more, there are a lot fewer quality discrepancies.”

Processing time dropped dramatically.

For Branon, the relief was personal.

“I felt like I could start focusing more on the bigger picture and kind of get out of the weeds a little bit,” she said. “Just having at least one thing off my plate is huge.”

Converting refunds into retained revenue

Beyond efficiency, Guardian Sports has been able to use returns as a retention tool rather than a revenue loss.

“We have been able to convert refunds into exchanges,” Branon said. “And trying to keep that money back into the business has been really important. ShipStation has really enabled us to keep the money in Guardian.”

The impact on customer retention has been measurable.

That 50% improvement in retention is a metric that compounds over time.

Peak season without the panic

During Guardian Sports’ busiest months, ShipStation has proven essential.

“We can do same-day shipping now,” Duncan said. “Without ShipStation, since it was so manual, it really took a lot longer. I would say it really helped during peak season with the order volume we had.”

The warehouse team describes peak season as exciting rather than chaotic.

“We know that if there are a lot more orders going out, the volume’s higher, the more players that we get to help with their safety,” Duncan said. “So it’s really exciting during peak season.”

It just works

When asked to describe ShipStation’s impact in three words, Hanson didn’t hesitate.

Guardian Sports continues to expand its product line and reach more athletes. With ShipStation and Shopify working together behind the scenes, the team can focus on what matters: helping players stay in the game they love, safely.

“Our entire mission and our goal is: how do these athletes play the sports that they love without the repercussions?” Hanson said. “We’ve got a lot more athletes that we can help.”

Quick stats

• 52% reduction in NFL athlete concussions during first Guardian Cap season
• 300-400 orders processed daily during peak season
• 45% customer retention rate (up from 30%—a 50% improvement)
• 50% reduction in return processing time
• 80% of orders flow through Shopify Plus integration
• Same-day shipping capability achieved during peak periods

Ready to take the guesswork out of returns?

Guardian Sports transformed returns from a 15-minute headache into a streamlined, self-service experience—and boosted customer retention by 50% in the process. Whether you’re processing 50 orders a day or 500, ShipStation’s automated returns portal can help you turn refunds into revenue retention and keep customers coming back.

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