UPS has designated January 6, 2016, National Returns Day when it expects customers to ship more than a million packages back to retailers on that day alone. Not exactly a holiday for merchants to celebrate.
By the end of the first week of January, UPS expects to deliver more than 5 million returns packages, which is 500,000 more than last year. And UPS wants to be the shipper of choice, noting that it offers a wide variety of returns solutions for merchants. “Some retailers provide return labels within outbound shipments, while others have technology that allows them to offer a consumer credit or refund as soon as the item is scanned into the UPS network,” it said.
UPS also provided some data showing that of the 45% of customers who have returned an item by shipping it back to a retailer, 42% of them made a new online purchase during the process.
It said 67% of consumers look at a retailer’s return policy before they complete an order. 66% want free returns shipping and 47% want an easy-to-print return label.
UPS also found that 32% of retailers offered free returns and less than half specified a merchandise exchange timeline on their website, “a key component of the return policy that is viewed by 88% of online shoppers,” it noted.
