MCM CommerceChat: U.S. Spending on Returns Equals Public School Budget

Welcome everyone to another episode of MCM’s CommerceChat; your home for all things ecommerce operations, logistics, supply chain and marketing.  Our readers may have noticed that we’re dedicating a special focus for Q3, highlighting some of the more innovative and unique approaches to handling the ever-growing problem facing the industry around ecommerce returns. Returns are close to becoming a trillion-dollar problem for our retailer community, so we sat down with Simone Theresa Peinkofer, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University.  Simone has focused her research on retail supply chain management, fulfillment operations, and consumer response to out-of-stocks, among other areas. ICYMI, Peinkofer put together a terrific overview of the challenge surrounding returns for Fortune in June, which you can find right here.  In the article, she notes that reverse logistics cost retailers roughly $816 billion in lost sales in 2022, which is nearly as much as the U.S. spent on public schools and almost twice the cost just three years ago. In this quick conversation, we discuss: How the return issue has been magnified by booming online sales, the practice of bracketing, and retailers overly lenient return policies Trickle down effects of customers sending items back, including warehousing, staffing, and scaling issues What consumers really want when it comes to the experience How consumers are looking for convenience Retailers using the returns experience as an opportunity to build loyalty Target’s policy of letting consumers return items up to one year from the purchase date Methods for reducing returns; including a discussion on the use of predictive analytics How managing returns in a more efficient and sustainable way will become more of a priority for retailers If you’re interested in learning more about why returns will take centerstage for retailers over the next few years, be sure to check out today’s episode! The post MCM CommerceChat: U.S. Spending on Returns Equals Public School Budget appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.