E-commerce has reoriented retail, and growth continues to outpace overall retail sales growth as more legacy retailers expand their digital operations and as pure-plays in several categories continue to enter the space. It’s been a costly shift, not least due to the expense and inefficiencies of returns.
Returns are inefficient to begin with and online returns more so, in light of consumers’ penchant for ordering more than they intend to buy, especially in apparel, so they can try out goods as they would in a store fitting room. Online purchases are three to four times more likely to be returned than in-store ones, according to Happy Returns.
