Product Returns

The retail industry is at a crossroads with product returns, which need to be managed more thoughtfully to lighten the burden on operations and the bottom line, ease the environmental impact, and build customer loyalty. The National Retail Federation (NRF) found returns cost retailers $101 billion during the 2020 holidays. For the holiday season just behind…

Retail job openings reached a staggering 1.3 million in August — the same month employees voluntarily left their jobs at record rates (4.3 million). As the 2021 holiday season approached, retailers scrambled to fill hundreds of thousands of vacant roles by offering higher wages and signing bonuses. However, while they made it through the holiday…

A record number of cargo ships are backed up in U.S. ports. There aren’t enough dock workers or truck drivers to distribute every new shipment. The global supply chain is strapped. All of these issues combined are leading to a significant amount of out-of-stock inventory and frustrated customers. Retailers are scrambling to prepare for a…

In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews David Morin, senior director of retail and client strategy at Narvar, the post-purchase customer engagement platform. Listen in as Morin discusses his current role and career background, Narvar's business offerings and partners, and some of the trends he's seen over the last year-plus…

Product returns are a necessary evil for retailers; shoppers won’t buy without them, but shipping and return-to-stock costs have a major impact on revenue. Experts estimate the average return costs a retailer between 15 percent to 30 percent of the original purchase price, and cumulatively, returns cost retailers $550 billion every year. In our new…

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Marie Albiges and Kristina Stidham discuss an article recently published by Total Retail titled, “The Retail Reverse Logistics Reckoning: Brands Cast Eyes to Returns Amid the E-Commerce Swell,” authored by Jeff Cashman, chief operating officer at GreyOrange. While retailers' supply chains were primarily focused on getting goods…

As a long-time supply chain professional, it was humbling and exciting to watch the revolutions that took place amid the huge shift in consumerism over the past 18 months. Unfortunately, the circumstances were dire and distressing. But the agility, the innovation, the resiliency that consumer-facing brands showed in finding new ways to serve their customers…

E-commerce is hot. In fact, U.S. consumers spent a total of $861 billion online in 2020 alone, which was a 44 percent increase from the year prior. However, this also meant that returns from those e-commerce purchases rose 70 percent year-over-year (YoY) in 2020. Which begs the question: How different is the e-commerce return rate…

Consumer modelling and segmentation have never been more critical in retail, as the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom has put customer acquisition and retention under the spotlight like never before. With shopper behaviors under scrutiny, retailers are continuing to focus on fraud prevention and loss minimization, particularly when it comes to returns. Preventing fraud and minimizing excessive…

Buy now pay later (BNPL) companies like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have been quietly building a loyal customer base for the last few years. Today, 56 percent of U.S. consumers say they have used BNPL providers for retail purchases — up nearly 50 percent from July 2020. Thanks to budget concerns, credit card mistrust, and…