Online retailers which have chosen to focus more on building pre-Christmas sales, than developing their returns capabilities, risk a challenging start to the New Year.
Why are retailers struggling with returns?
The warning follows research by one of Irish-based Coll-8 Logistics which has found brands already struggling to cope with a rise in unwanted items as a result of the increase in online shopping since the start of the Covid pandemic.
The study has concluded that eCommerce sales across the whole of Europe are expected to top £350 billion (€412 billion) this year – up one-third on the figure before the pandemic began.
However, Coll-8 Logistics’ firm’s founder and Chief Operations Officer, Dave Field, claimed that up to 40% of goods in some of the most popular categories of online purchases are ultimately sent back to the retailers from which they have been bought.
