Product Returns

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Caitlin Sullivan discuss L.L.Bean's decision to change its famously generous return policy, the implications it may have on the brand, and what it means for its competitors.

L.L.Bean will scrap its unlimited lifetime warranty and no longer accept returns on any product it has ever sold regardless of the condition or age of the merchandise. The Portland Press Herald reports L.L. Bean executives made the decision as a result of a growing number of customers abusing its generous satisfaction guarantee policy. Previously,…

Don’t miss this webinar to learn how to protect your business from costly overstocks, out-of-stocks and returns.

In response to a survey by the National Retail Federation, retailers reported a median return rate of 10 percent. This equates to $351 billion in sales that were made and then lost. Legitimate returns are expensive for retailers — labor, overhead and opportunity costs all impact performance. Added to these necessary returns, the 2017 increase…

Retail is unique in that the scope of a business’s success (or failure) is never entirely certain. While a store may have “out of this world” sales numbers in November and December, there’s nothing stopping those numbers from crashing down come the post-holiday return season. To create a level of predictability, some retailers have adopted…

With the holiday buying fervor behind us, the avalanche of product returns begins. Given that U.S. retail holiday sales are on track to rise 4 percent to 4.5 percent this year — and, according to Deloitte forecasts, e-commerce sales are expected to hit between $111 to $114 billion during the 2017 holiday season — the…

With the holiday buying fervor behind us, the avalanche of product returns begins. Given that U.S. retail holiday sales are on track to rise 4 percent to 4.5 percent this year — and, according to Deloitte forecasts, e-commerce sales are expected to hit between $111 to $114 billion during the 2017 holiday season — the […]

Tis the season for returns! The two weeks after Christmas and New Year's is usually considered the busiest time of year for returns. ABC Action News and ConsumerWorld.org have researched which retailers have the easiest return policies and which ones have the toughest. Nordstrom and Macy's top the list of easiest return policies. Customers of…

This Saturday, Nov. 11, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will hold its annual Singles Day event, which last year grossed $17.8 billion (USD) in sales, up from $14.3 billion in 2015, according to a report from Fung Global Retail & Technology (FGRT). The 24-hour phenomenon has quickly become the world's largest shopping day, consistently surpassing…