“Giving the choice and convenience to consumers on returns is equally important to what we see on the outbound side,” Amit Sharma, Narvar’s founder and CEO, argued to Modern Shipper.
According to Narvar’s research, one-quarter of customers purposely abuse retailers’ return policies, such as by falsely claiming an item was missing or damaged. Another quarter engages in wardrobing, the practice of buying a product with the intent to use it once or twice before returning it for full value.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Almost 40% of consumers said that if returns were more convenient, chances are they would do the right thing.
“If merchants can use the data to give that [convenience], then consumers may not abuse the policies as such, but retailers can also get genuine feedback,” Sharma explained.
The guest list
If The Lead attendees were looking for innovation, they found it on the returns side. Over two days, reverse logistics firms showed off innovative models including a nationwide meshwork of returns hubs, a countrywide peer-to-peer returns network and even a system that could eliminate returns entirely.
Narvar, for example, is focused on building a convenient online returns experience for consumers by allowing them to return a product in as few clicks as possible. You might be familiar with the interface if you’ve shopped brands like Gap, Levi’s, The Home Depot or Sephora.
Typically, shoppers need to return products either to the retailer they purchased from or to the carrier that delivered to them. But Happy Returns doesn’t discriminate. Its Return Bars aggregate returns across merchants and ship them together, which has the added bonus of saving the retailer money.
Greenlist is still in the process of building a critical mass of customers through integrations with retail e-commerce sites. But once enough people are on the wait list, Greenlist plans to roll out the network and allow customers to opt in with the click of a button.
What goes around comes around
“Our platform, Chief Returns Officer, analyzes data from multiple retail platforms. … This analysis reveals the root cause of why the returns are happening in the first place,” Navjit Bhasin, Newmine’s CEO, told Modern Shipper. “And since 73% of returns occur for reasons within the retailer’s control — like sending the incorrect product or misrepresentation of the product on the website — the platform also prescribes corrective actions so you can prevent returns.”
Newmine’s solution attempts to find the root cause of returns, whether that’s damaged or lost products, delayed deliveries or customer dissatisfaction. It does this by poring over product, transactional and customer feedback, aggregating those insights into a single score.
Eliminating returns entirely makes sense as the ultimate goal for retailers. But until that day arrives — and it may never — they need reverse logistics companies to continue innovating with new models and technologies to make the process as simple as possible.
Luckily, The Lead proved that when it comes to returns, innovation is alive and well.
