The Holiday Return Surge Ruins Our Planet — Make These Small Changes To Create A More Sustainable (and Profitable) Business.

As nan picnic play winds down, retailers are preparing for a surge successful merchandise returns, a arena truthful important that January has been dubbed "Return-uary."

In 2024, astir $890 cardinal worthy of products were returned — astir 20% of each purchases, marking a important year-over-year increase, according to a study by nan National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. While elastic return policies heighten customer satisfaction, they recreation astatine a steep costs to immoderate brands and nan environment.

The transportation, labour and logistics required to process returns importantly summation retailers' costs, pinch companies for illustration Asos, Amazon and Wayfair attributing awesome profit losses to nan effect of returns.

It's not conscionable nan billions successful mislaid gross that's astatine stake: The emergence of ecommerce has resulted successful an alarming title of returns ending up successful landfills. Every year, 9.5 cardinal pounds of returns — perfectly good, never-used products — heap up successful nan trash because of nan operational challenges of processing and reselling returned items.

At nan aforesaid time, returns relationship an important touchpoint for retailers to proviso a affirmative narration pinch their customers. Flexible return policies personification spell captious to a successful omnichannel portion strategy fostering customer loyalty and building marque trust.

Retailers and brands must commencement balancing profitability and sustainability arsenic they compete for personification loyalty and marketplace share.

Related: How to Make Your Customers (and Employees) Love Returns This Holiday Season

Drive loyalty without sacrificing profit

In nan past 5 years, returns personification doubled owed to changing personification habits, according to nan NRF and Happy Returns report, fueled by nan accelerated online shopping displacement of nan pandemic. With ecommerce projected to surpass $8 trillion by 2027, retailers saw a surge successful income — and returns — during 2024's record-breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Managing these returns presents precocious costs and logistical challenges for galore brands.

Today's retailers are balancing precocious customer restitution against nan added costs and logistics progressive pinch handling returns. Lenient returns policies beforehand marque loyalty, build spot and reenforce affirmative marque experiences: It's successful brands' champion interests to support elastic returns.

The solution? Recommerce. This onslaught allows retailers to support elastic return policies while managing products overmuch sustainably. Returns recommerce simplifies processing and reselling, transforming discarded into a nett caller worthy stream. Product returns should nary longer beryllium viewed arsenic an inevitable costs of doing business but arsenic an opportunity to innovate.

To start, retailers should reimagine nan afloat lifecycle of their products — readying for merchandise end-of-life astatine nan opening of a product's lifecycle. Reverse logistics readying is simply a captious information of proviso chains that are helping retailers negociate returns while improving their biology impact.

Investing successful reverse logistics systems aliases partnering pinch a returns partner tin streamline nan processing and resale of returned items. For example, Rebelstork is North America's largest returns recommerce level for open-box and overstock babe and location products. Built connected nan principles of nan accusation economy, Rebelstork intends to revolutionize nan returns manufacture done innovative exertion and a caller measurement of thinking. By partnering pinch complete 2,500 brands, Rebelstork prevents overmuch than 12 cardinal pounds of products from ending up successful landfills each year.

Reduce biology impact

Every year, billions of pounds of returned items — peculiarly successful categories for illustration fashion, babe cogwheel and location instrumentality — extremity up successful landfills. To put this successful perspective, this discarded pile-up is nan balanced of 10,500 afloat loaded Boeing 747s, a ghastly fig that has eroded retailers' hard-earned sustainability targets and multiplied their c footprints.

Online and mobile shopping's roar too intends that nan measurement of returns is higher than ever: Retail's returns problem has quickly spell a returns crisis.

There is simply a dire petition to build returns recommerce systems that are not only cost-effective, but that are too environmentally responsible. Recommerce is simply a highly viable solution that's quickly expanding successful popularity.

Lean connected technology's powerfulness to trim waste

Historically, location has been nary reliable strategy for efficiently processing returns, but caller companies are tackling these challenges head-on by processing innovative solutions and groundbreaking technology. Rebelstork, for instance, has developed proprietary exertion to process truckloads of returns and overstock items daily. This exertion streamlines nan influx of returned merchandise into its warehouses, enabling nan institution to process complete 70,000 unsocial units weekly.

Related: Don't Let Product Returns Eat Into Your Online Profits This Holiday Season

A triumph for business, brands and nan planet

Small adjustments to portion systems tin thrust efficiency, boost profits and beforehand sustainability. It's clip to toggle style 1 of retail's biggest challenges into a catalyst for affirmative change.