ReStore service tackles returns

Businesses must ensure they are prepared for a new type of consumer that has appeared: the “serial returner”. As businesses look to meet the demand of consumers, they are now offering free delivery to entice more people to shop with them. Consumers are now using this service to buy a number of items with the knowledge that they will return several of them. 

Free delivery is a costly service to offer, and free returns double the cost. The pain is often increased when products are returned in non-resalable conditions. This is an issue that businesses need to address or risk losing vast amounts of money through this costly operation.

Research commissioned by SAP and PwC, published in January 2017, found that only 50% of consumers felt they had received consistent and superior multi-channel experience from their favourite retailers. Businesses must ensure they are offering the highest quality service or risk losing brand reputation, and even more importantly, their customers.

Almost all retailers are faced with the issue of customers returning items in an unfit state, and are faced with the choice of refusing to return the item(s) and risk losing brand reputation, or write down the value of stock. With the high rate of online returns, both options are unattractive and will often result in the business losing money.

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Figures compiled by Savvy Marketing showed that 56% of UK shoppers in 2016 returned at least one piece of clothing they had bought online, so it makes complete business sense to ensure as many items are resold if they can be restored to an appropriate resale state.

Advanced Supply Chain provides a ReStore service that offers retailers a third option. By using our garment expertise and specialised technical equipment, we are able to recover much more of the value locked away in customer returns.

Recently, we took in customer returns from a major retailer that were in an unsalable condition, which were valued at £80,000. For fee of £20,000, Advanced was able to return the goods to a full retail value of £350,000, representing a ROI of £250,000.

The service is also linked to the decision making through our IT solution, which allows retailers to decide whether the rework should take place, or if the product should be sold via an alternative route to market. This enables businesses to get maximum value-for-money for each of its items that they send through for refurbishment.