Seamless Returns — The New Strategy Fueling Growth In Retail

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, brands and retailers looked to create more personalized and seamless experiences as a way of driving in-store and online sales. But as we look past the holiday season and enter the new year, businesses are now looking to enhance a different type of experience — returns.

Yep, returns.

The effort to create a much more seamless exchange and returns process plays into a much larger strategy for brands’ and retailers’ overall growth.

For example, as contactless experiences have become a pivotal component for online shopping, retailers such as , have teamed up with Happy Returns to create a seamless and touch-free experience through their use of QR codes.

And consumers seem to love it. Within the first month of the new partnership, Dressbarn witnessed 75% of returns being made with QR codes.

But as we head into January, when merchandise returns are expected to reach a peak and the COVID-19 continues to be a reality, brands and retailers are not just looking to remove ‘return anxiety’ from the customer’s shopping experience; they’re hoping to create an experience that resonates with their customer base.

The idea here is that if the exchange/returns process is easy, customers will feel compelled to shop again.

Offering a seamless return and exchange experience is all the more critical as more consumers are now shopping online. According to , around 20% to 30% of online purchases are returned, while only 9% of products bought in a brick-and-mortar setting are returned.

While offering virtual try-on experiences can help reduce the rate of returns, online shopping still leaves much to be desired. After all, even with the power of augmented reality (AR), consumers still lack the ability to touch and feel an item before purchasing.

Still, there are steps brands and retailers can take that can help exchanges/returns fuel overall growth:

Cut the anxiety out of the process for customers

Keep the exchange/returns process clear, transparent and straightforward.

Offer at-home experiences

Brands and retailers can prevent the rate of exchange/returns through virtual experiences such as AR, which can support try-on experiences and give customers a better sense of what the product will look like on them.

Make the exchange/returns process easy, convenient and frictionless

While returns are less desirable, making the process as seamless as possible is critical as it still adds value to the customer’s overall shopping journey.

Offering various options to go about an exchange or a return and offering extended windows are just two ways to go about this.

Optimize overall returns costs

Shipping, in general, can be costly. And when you add in returns to the mix, it can often feel like an unnecessary spend.

To minimize costs, offer features such as return-to-store or curbside returns. Another way to optimize costs is tapping solutions that specialize in the process, such as Happy Returns, like Dressbarn did, or Narvar, which helps retailers save on reverse logistics through thousands of drop-off locations nationwide.

Originally published at https://retailbum.com on December 29, 2021.