What’s behind the surge of returns?
Simply stated: e-commerce. The rise of e-commerce over the past decade has driven a 33 percent increase in the return rate of overall retail sales. Digital challenges and consumer behaviors, as well as emerging business models that are unique to e-commerce, all contribute to e-commerce return statistics like this one.
With e-commerce revenues growing 15 percent annually and a product return rate near 30 percent of sales, we can expect 4 billion incremental units to be added to the annual reverse logistics pipeline by 2022.
And returns are expected to grow. If current industry forecasts hold steady, by 2022, retailers can expect 13 billion units worth $573 billion to be returned annually. That’s four times the total e-commerce sales in 2008.
