Life’s become so much simpler in some ways following the pandemic. Instead of spending hours running errands each weekend or on a day off, you’re done in minutes. Simply turn on your computer or grab a device and order groceries, household supplies, clothing, and personal items.
Many of the items you order come with free returns. Sounds great, right? It’s convenient for busy families, couples, and individuals, but it creates a headache for the environment. That item you send back doesn’t always end up where you’d think.
Brick-and-mortar stores have an 8.72% return rate. Online returns are almost triple that at 24.5%. Returns have doubled since 2020. The hidden environmental costs of these e-commerce returns cannot be ignored.
Understanding the Logistics of Returns
That return you conveniently dropped off at a UPS store or popped in the mail is more resource-intensive than you might believe. Getting from a manufacturer to you is a far simpler process than the one that occurs in a reverse supply chain.
Items sent to you are scheduled to follow a linear path from the warehouse to the delivery services hub before reaching your home. You place the order, workers or automated lines pick and pack it, and it goes to a carrier like FedEx, UPS, or USPS. They move it to the local sorting hub, and a local driver brings it to your address.
When you return an item, it’s not linear. The manufacturer isn’t planning return routes that start the farthest out and work inward. You can either drive it to the location or arrange for last-mile pickup, where a driver comes to your home or office. T
The carrier brings it to a regional returns depot or a logistics hub. It’s opened, inspected, and determined whether it should be returned to the vendor. Items going to the vendor are placed on a pallet and wait until the pallet is full before being sent as LTL (Less-Than-Truckload) freight.
Eventually, it goes to the retailer’s returns facility or a liquidator. If the returned item ends up at the wrong return center, it must be redirected.
Many Returns Go Right to the Landfill
The sad reality is that most of these returns end up in a landfill. A supply chain management expert believes about 80% of returns end up in landfills.
You might think they’d be repackaged and resold, but some items cannot be resold without increasing the resale cost.
Think about it. A person buys a $25 swimsuit, tries it on, and it doesn’t fit. Their body fluids are on that swimsuit. The retailer cannot resell it.
If it’s returned, it has to be sanitized. An hour of labor, along with electricity, water, and detergents, exceeds the cost of that $25 swimsuit. The retailer cannot raise the MSRP on that one item.
When the cost of repair or sanitizing exceeds the product’s initial value, it’s often better to write it off as a loss and throw it away.
Another concern comes from brand preservation. Luxury brands destroy their returns to preserve the value of that brand. If people could buy the fashions at a discount, people would be less likely to pay full price. About 90 million tons of fast-fashion items are discarded each year.
Returns Shaped by Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior and shopping habits often increase the number of returns each year.
Risk-Free Returns
When returns are free and no-questions-asked, it gives shoppers a lot more confidence to make purchases they might otherwise avoid. You can try it and return it without any penalty or additional cost, so why not spend the money? If you hate it, get your money back once it’s at the returns center.
Bracketing
This is a common pain point with clothing purchases. You find a pair of jeans you love. It doesn’t gap in the back, the fit is perfect, and they make you feel great.
You order dress pants from the same brand and buy them. The fit isn’t even close. You can’t fasten them. You don’t understand, as you know that size fits well. What went wrong?
There’s no standardized sizing across manufacturers. Even a single designer’s sizing may differ across styles. Dress pants fit perfectly in a size 8, but the yoga pants with that same brand fall off if you don’t go to a size 6. It’s frustrating.
That’s why there’s a rise in bracketing. Because sizing isn’t uniform across clothing designers, some shoppers purchase multiples (a bracket) of the same item to ensure they get the best fit.
When you send back the sizes that don’t fit, you’ve increased emissions from return shipping. Plus, those returned clothes could well end up in the trash.
How Do Consumers and Businesses Fix This?
It’s obvious that online shopping is causing problems, but how can we fix it? It’s not just up to consumers. Manufacturers and retailers need to do their part, too.
Return and Restocking Fees
Retailers can stop offering unconditional free return policies. It’s time to start charging fees for returns or restocking. This will help drive consumers to make smarter purchases and avoid bracketing to get the right size. Some retailers have already embraced return fees, provided they are legal in the purchaser’s state.
- Best Buy – 15% return fee for opened products, such as digital cameras, drones, and projectors.
- H&M – $5.99 flat fee for mail-in returns. Free only if you bring items back to a brick-and-mortar store.
- Kohls – 15% restocking fee on large, heavy items unless defective.
- TJ Maxx – $11.99 mail-in return fee, per package. Free for in-store returns.
Have Recycling Plans in Place
Businesses can take a stand and vow to keep returned items out of landfills. Clothing could be donated to organizations that provide clothing to impoverished people. It’s a donation, so it’s usually tax-deductible. Electronics can be refurbished and resold.
Make Wise Purchases
When shopping for items online, make sure you read reviews, get the best quality for the price, and buy only what you absolutely need. If you’re not 100% convinced, shop locally so that you can see/feel the item and make sure it fits your needs.
Shop for clothing at local stores and try them on before you buy. If you absolutely must purchase clothing online, pay very close attention to size charts and read reviews to see if others found it was undersized or oversized.
Instead of returning it. Consider using a reselling site and let someone else purchase it from you. It works well if you’re going to pay a return or restocking fee anyway. You often get more money by selling it than by returning it, and you’ve helped the environment.
Designers and Manufacturers Need to Use Standard, Accurate Sizing
Instead of using one photo of a clothing item, include multiple photos and list the model’s height and weight. Aim to capture as many body shapes as possible. Provide accurate, detailed size charts.
Consider adding a virtual changing room so that shoppers can enter their measurements and have an avatar try on the clothing online to get a good representation of the fit.
Working Together Helps the Planet
When you carefully consider your purchases, you minimize returns. When businesses have plans in place to prevent returns ending up in landfills, the planet benefits.
Before tossing anything out, always make sure you cannot recycle it locally. RecycleNation’s AI tool helps you find the nearest recycling facility for just about any item.
