The growth in home deliveries has cut car journeys, eased
congestion and lowered emissions, visitors to Multimodal 2015, the UK’s largest
freight and transport event, heard this week. However, Fastlane warned that the
escalating level of customer returns is threatening to undermine the
environmental benefits of internet shopping.
Speaking at Multimodal 2015, held at Birmingham’s National
Exhibition Centre, Fastlane International’s Head of Public Relations, David
Jinks MILT, says: ‘The message from Multimodal is clear. Retailers must address
the serious issue of ever-increasing customer returns.’
Audiences at Multimodal heard that e-tailers are grappling
with return rates as high as 60 per cent, whereas 5 or 6 per cent is the norm for traditional brick and
mortar retailers. David reveals: ‘The return rate is growing significantly
faster than the overall growth in e-commerce at the moment, and that’s a very
worrying trend. The high rate of returns is costing retailers £20bn a year. But
it’s the environmental cost that is so concerning. Unnecessary returns mean
more vehicle movements, more congestion and increased pollution.’
And David adds consumers are not to blame. ‘The urban myth
that everyone is constantly ordering clothes in several sizes and then
returning those we don’t want is not really true. Of course many of us have
done exactly this from time to time, but as industry analysts Clear Returns
revealed at Multimodal, clothes’ size-related issues only add up to around 10
per cent of total returns.’
Explaining why returns are rising, David says: ‘Some
retailers are undoubtedly being short-sighted and looking for easy sales, but
in fact they are ultimately losing money on their transactions. Misleading
descriptions – making an item sound something it isn’t – lead to increased
returns. Similarly, pictures that make an item look larger or better finished
are also highly likely to result in returned items; as shoppers grow less
tolerant, and ever-more likely to return items that don’t exactly match their
expectations.
David observes: ‘The same items can come back again and
again and, after the second return there’s unlikely to be any margin left, so
retailers are being extremely short-sighted in using misleading sales tactics.’
David concludes: ‘Timeliness is also often a big issue in
returns. A new industry report published this week has highlighted the ever
increasing demand for click and collect. If an item is needed for a particular
day or event and the delivery was missed, it means yet another unhappy returned
delivery.”
This key topic, along with other critical operations &
customer service essentials will be covered at the DCA’s Operations Excellence
Forum which takes place at Leicester Tigers on June 25th. For more information about this highly
topical event as retailers prepare for the Christmas season please go to
www.direct-commerce-association.com or call the DCA team on 01271 855545
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