How can retailers keep problems outside their control from damaging customer relationships? Competing on customer experience (CX) is always smart, but right now it’s critical. Of course, the best CX is getting the products they want when they want them. But you can deliver excellent CX in other ways to maintain trust and goodwill.
Retailers lost $218 billion to ecommerce returns in 2021, at a rate of 20.8% of goods sold, according to a survey conducted by Apriss Retail for the National Retail Federation, up from 18.1% in 2020, while total retail returns came back at a rate of 16.6% or $761 billion, up from 10.6% last year.
Optoro, provider of returns services for retail and ecommerce, has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Zebra Technologies, whose handheld scanning devices run Optoro software for processing returns in store and in warehouses, giving Optoro access to Zebra’s large customer base (photo credit: The Wilson Post)
Given the tight labor market and climbing ecommerce order volumes, planning ahead has never been more fundamental. Like any fulfillment center function, your returns process can impact employee retention. Here’s how you can make your organization more attractive for current and future employees.
Flexible returns policies increase customer confidence, especially for ecommerce purchases, which is why savvy marketers dedicate themselves to ensuring an easy process. However, this frictionless approach also opens the door to those looking to exploit it. Here’s how to deal with ecommerce return fraud this holiday season.
If a retail marketer’s current customer segmentation is made without taking ecommerce returns data into account, then it’s hard to know what the real value of customers are, and segmentation and targeting decisions are thrown into question. Ultimately, this could mean that marketing effectiveness ends up well below its potential.
Ecommerce Operations Summit 2021 is back live, at the Gaylord Opreyland in Nashville on Aug. 17-18, and the team at Multichannel Merchant has a great event on tap to help operations and fulfillment professionals keep on top of key industry trends and address the challenges of a disruptive time. Read on for some program highlights.
How can retailers leverage costly ecommerce returns into a sales tool? It’s an interesting question, given how retailers wrestle with the avalanche of costly returns. Some have remade returns into a customer loyalty campaign, while tech-savvy companies are taking the returns experience to the next level with AI and computer vision.
Here is a look at the building blocks that have enabled retailers to turn a negative experience into a positive opportunity for additional sales.
Looking to create more of an end-to-end ecommerce solution and move beyond the perception that it’s a payments platform only, PayPal has acquired Happy Returns, which consolidates returns for retailers via a national network of mall and store collection points. PayPal had led a 2019 funding round of $11M into Happy Returns.
In this webinar, experts from FedEx will join Multichannel Merchant to discuss industry trends and share insights to help you better manage your returns, satisfy your customers and grow your business.