The Aspirin That Soothes the Returns Headache | Modern Retail
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The Aspirin That Soothes the Returns Headache
Are returns the biggest headache for online retailers? Returns are not so great for customers either. If retailers are to make the most of the new captive audience, it is time to stop treating returns as an annoying business cost. With the right approach, retailers can improve the customer experience, using returns data to massively reduce the number of returned items and inform future buying and merchandising strategies, insists James Hyde, CEO of James and James Fulfilment.
Returns are an inevitable part of the eCommerce retail model. From the early days, when retailers threw in free returns to make the new concept of buying online attractive, customers have been led to expect a free returns option. In a pandemic, they also want that returns process to be as simple and low touch as possible.
For retailers grappling with the huge surge in eCommerce demand, inadequate returns processes could derail the business. The problem is that the worse the fulfilment process is, the higher the number of returns are. As many retailers are finding, as they struggle to ramp up in response to new customer orders, inaccurate product picking, ill-judged packaging and badly managed logistics partnerships mean only one thing: more returns. And that leads to more cost – in customer refunds, in reverse logistics and, more often than not, in products that are simply never put back on sale.
Which products are being returned most frequently? Is this due to incorrect information on the website, faulty products or delivery problems? If products are repeatedly returned due to mis-sizing, a company could opt to suggest customers choose a different size on the web site. It could certainly embark upon robust discussions with a supplier about the sizing issue and be far more proactive about checking any future deliveries from that company.