The COVID-19 pandemic-fueled surge in e-commerce creates a growing challenge related to the age-old issue of returns. As The Wall Street Journal highlights, “That shopping shift is placing more importance on solving a problem that dates to the early days of online shopping. Free shipping and other accommodating return policies have made consumers used to ordering multiple sizes and colors and returning what they don’t want.”
We all know online shopping has been the mainstay of consumer purchasing patterns in 2020 — think about the drastic shifts in your own consumer behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But items don’t always delight, and often end up back in the mail as returns. With this in mind, it’s critical that businesses evaluate how teams are equipped to handle returns in the early part of 2021 and beyond.
E-commerce merchants can learn from E-tailers by taking steps to reduce both the cost and volume of returns even as their business rapidly grows. Chewy often doesn’t bother with returns; Warby Parker and Rent the Runway build return costs into their business model. Either of these approaches can pay dividends when proactively applied, but the first steps in determining which model is right for you are gathering and analyzing the data to see where opportunities exist for optimization of the returns process.
The National Retail Federation predicts budgets for global reverse logistics technologies will increase in 2021 — forecast last year to hit $604 billion by 2025 — as retailers look to streamline the consumer experience and minimize returns costs.
HAZMAT parcel shipping is full of intricacies, both inbound and outbound. The difference? Outbound HAZMAT shipments are carefully prepared and handled by trained professionals to meet safety and compliance standards, whereas with HAZMAT returns, that burden falls to the consumer.
Many top shippers are challenging the notion of returns as a “cost of doing business” they must passively accept. In fact, a lot can be done to counter the growth of returns from an operational perspective, and many of the world’s biggest retailers have identified game-changing insights by looking at the returns process more critically.
Statista reports the cost of returns has increased by approximately 75% in the last four years, and this number doesn’t account for restocking expenses and inventory losses. Here are seven strategies to simplify returns and control costs.
