1. Divert landfill waste by increasing resale rates
There are many reasons returned items cannot be resold, including damage, missing parts or being out of season. These unsold items often pile up in warehouses, taking up valuable space and ultimately ending up in landfills. The solution is increasing the salability of returns.
The more items that can be resold, the more revenue a retailer will make, and the less waste will be sent to landfills.
The key to increasing resale rates is speed. The faster retailers can get returned items back, repaired and restocked, the more chance they have of reselling the items. Any delays in shipping, processing or restocking directly impact the likeliness of an item being resold.
However, if retailers know what goods are being returned and why — before they arrive at the warehouse — smarter decisions can be made in less time. By utilizing this pre-sort data, retailers gain valuable insights into the condition and nature of returned items before they even reach the warehouse floor. This helps warehousing teams quickly assess and make the right decisions about each item.
Items in good condition that have been returned because they didn’t fit, or because a customer changed their mind, can be prioritized for repackaging and resale. If an item is flagged as having damage, it can be sent directly to the repair shop for a quick fix. It can also be flagged as a second-chance item to be offered at a discounted rate, depending on the type of damage.
Items beyond repair or resale can be categorized for proper recycling based on the item type and materials. Partnering with responsible recycling facilities ensures these materials are diverted from landfills and potentially used to create new products.
2. Reduce waste from return labels
Blue Yonder’s research found that 27% of merchants still offer pre-printed carrier labels in the package. For every customer who doesn’t return an item, these labels go straight into the trash, creating tons of returns label paper waste across all parcels.
By offering a digital returns portal, retailers enable customers to book returns online and provide the reason for each return —– eliminating the cost and waste associated with printing labels for every package. By switching to a digital returns portal, UK retailer ASOS has removed 64 million paper returns inserts per year, saving around 8,450 trees or 320,000 kilograms of paper and avoiding 312 tons of CO2 emissions.
In addition, digital portals also give retailers greater control over what returns are coming back. For example, if a customer tries to return an item that is out of policy, retailers can automatically reject the return. By collecting return information from each customer — including what items are being returned, customer information and the return reason — retailers can use this information to fuel more efficient processing and management, like prioritizing resale items to increase revenue recapture.
