A record number of post-holiday ecommerce returns are expected, with UPS expecting to process 1.9 million returns on January 2 alone. That’s up 26% from last year’s holiday season returns.
UPS noted it will mark a seventh consecutive record, illustrating how ecommerce continues transforming shopping patterns.
National Returns Day, which falls on Thursday, January 2, 2020 this year, is a peak day for what will be a busy post-holiday period.
UPS contrasted the ease of returning unwanted holiday gifts by shipping with methods utilized in years past, “when consumers would rush to physical retailers the day after Christmas and stand in long lines to make returns,” as it wrote in a press release this week.
“UPS has helped rewrite that narrative by offering both retailers and consumers tools to make the returns process flexible, transparent and profitable. Now, consumers make purchases with returns in mind, and, according to the UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper study, 73% of online shoppers say the returns experience affects their likelihood to buy from a retailer again.”
It included a list of ways shoppers can drop their returns into its shipping stream:
- More than 36,000 UPS drop boxes for smaller packages with labels.
- UPS delivery drivers, who can directly receive a return package with a label.
- More than 4,800 The UPS Store locations, which in addition to UPS Access Point services, can help with full-service packing, shipping and returns needs.
- More than 14,000 UPS Access Point locations, including Michaels, Advance Auto, CVS Pharmacy and The UPS Store locations, which accept pre-labeled UPS packages.
And the carrier also highlighted ways retailers can use UPS returns services including the following:
- UPS Returns Manager is a portal offering shippers control and visibility over their returns. The service allows shippers of all sizes to create and manage returns policies and designate the return destination;
- UPS Print Return Labels can be included in outbound shipments to simplify the returns process;
- UPS Electronic Return Labels can be emailed to consumers directly from UPS to improve their returns experience;
- UPS Returns Plus allows the merchant to send a driver to deliver a return label and pick up the return package from any address;
- UPS Returns Exchange is when a driver simultaneously picks up the return item in exchange for the replacement item delivery; and
- UPS Mail Innovations Returns allows customers to return flat and lightweight packages through the postal channel of his or her choice; and
- Optoro and UPS work together to provide a streamlined reverse logistics solution that combines UPS’s operational and logistics expertise with Optoro’s returns optimization platform that can help maximize recovery value and reduces harmful environmental waste.
UPS is also hosting a webinar for retailers, “How to Become a Returns Rock Star, on January 16th.
SOURCE: UPS Press Release
