You know what I’d like for 2020? Transparency in breathless online sales reporting. If nearly one-third of the 18 percent of online sales is probably returned – net sales are probably one-third lower. The easier it is to return the more damage to the environment and retailers’ margins. At some point, both are untenable.

Return rates will keep climbing as it becomes easier and easier to buy and return things. We have seen some interesting perspectives in this arena with some retailers saying they will not sell to given customers. Last year I advocated an independent “credit rating” type approach to returns where data from across multiple retailers is aggregated by customer to determine how to deal with consumers who abuse returns. The data exists to do this but it is spread across multiple retailers. At some stage I imagine we are likely to see cost of returns cited as a reason for missing financial results – when this happens we know it is going to be taken more seriously.

Return rates probably are out of control and that is because return policies are too liberal, period.

I do expect that return rates will continue to increase as online sales continue to grow. And while the cost of returns will remain an Achilles heel of online retailing, it is also a permanent part of online selling – people will buy online, as long as they know they can easily return goods. Unfortunately, the significant, wasteful costs associated with online shipping aren’t going anywhere but up. There are no simple answers to mitigating the inherent costs of returns, however, the retailers that appear to be doing the best job of managing returns costs are those that have effective BOPIS programs.

Sadly, returns represent yet another black eye to the environmental courtesy of e-commerce. The shipping, the packaging, the waste…the list of environmental impacts of returns goes on and on. While generous return policies are clearly good for business, we simply must encourage people to return items in ways that minimize the damage. Encouraging returns to the store is a great start, as is offering returns to third-party locations (e.g. Amazon returns at Kohl’s), where they can at least be consolidated and handled locally before being shipped. Upgrading local discretion at third-party return centers would help as well. We have to begin making smarter decisions about how the bottom line impacts the planet, and returns handling seems like a great place to start.

Retailers have contributed to the problem of high return rates by making it easier or more economical for consumers to return items. When a few retailers offer free shipping on returns, others tend to follow. This exasperates the high returns problem.

Ideally, retailers should be doing things to reduce or discourage returns like better online product information, sizing tools, and discounts for items exchanged instead of refunded.

The costs of high return rates are the flipside of the costs of “free” shipping. Customer expectations have gotten higher and higher — driven partly by Amazon — and stores’ efforts to tighten up their return policies are going to meet with resistance. It doesn’t help matters when retailers encourage purchases of multiple colors and sizes as a consumer incentive, knowing that most of these products are going to be returned.

Yes, return rates are out of control and will get worse unless the industry makes it a little more painful for the consumer which many will shy away from doing. There will always be a market for goods that are returned and then resold at a fraction of the original cost, but those add up to bad business when you consider the amount of money lost. Perhaps the consumer needs to be reminded of the fact that 5 billion pounds of returns end up as waste in landfills each and every year. Like the reminders in hotel bathrooms to reuse your towels, maybe it will prompt consumers to think about this in unselfish terms.

Easy return policies are a necessary evil for online retailing. I agree with Bob Phibbs that there needs to be a true measure of sales (sales minus returns). The cost of returns will reduce online retail profitability and this cost may drive some online retailers out of the business in 2020. I only seeing returns, and the cost of returns, continuing to go up unless new return policies are put into place. Retailers are making online consumerism easy, maybe too easy, and this creates the buy-disappointment-return vicious cycle.

Increasing return rates are an unintended consequence of more liberal return policies. Online shopping now requires no thought from the shopper – I can just click on everything, and return what I don’t want, never mind the monetary and environmental costs. Free returns will be the “double coupon” albatross for e-commerce going forward, and changing back will take years.

Return rates will continue to rise as e-commerce takes a greater share of retail channels. We need a multi-pronged approach: from improvements in material science such that ultimate disposal does not cause further environmental harm, to next generation reverse logistics grounded in intelligent automation. The one thing I would caution is not to penalize the shopper, as this will become a competitor’s potential advantage.

Returns are a natural consequence of retailing. They are exaggerated during the holiday cycle and now more so with the steady rise of online sales. At some point, retailers will use historical data to feed artificially intelligent algorithms to better anticipate returns as well as help create new models and smart category-specific processes for handling returns more efficiently.

Combine free shipping and returns with wildly unpredictable sizes (even for men) and you’ve got a returns issue. The industry has to make some decisions about either standardizing sizes, or coming up with better descriptions beyond customer reviews.

True story:

My family has a very special event coming up. My wife wants a very special dress. She went online and shopped and found two sites where she liked the designs. One had an easy return process. She ordered six dresses, knowing she would keep only one.

The other had a complex return process. She ordered NONE.

Which retailer do you want to be? Which customer will be more satisfied?

Convenience is king for consumers and as a result return policies have evolved to make the entire process as easy as possible with no perceived repercussions. Yes, return rates will continue to increase as long as online ordering continues to rise. However, I believe that smart retailers are working these costs into their overall costs more and more accurately. Otherwise, they’ll run the risk of losing so much money on the returns that profitability will be severely impacted and that has obvious consequences for anyone other than Amazon. That said, I agree with other comments that for the apparel and footwear industries this problem is exaggerated by inconsistent sizing. Consumers don’t know what to order since they can’t count on sizing to make sense to them across brands. If the industry addresses this then return rates would go down.

They are what they are, and there are no signs of them going lower. A return rate is virtually built into some business models, particularly in apparel where “ship three to five choices to home to hopefully keep one or two” is a model.

Perhaps the only realistic approach is to make the costs of returns more transparent, and reward those customers who are low returners for being more profitable to the retailer. A financial incentive to keep returns lower might encourage better research pre-purchase, which might reduce some of this incredible waste.

“Free returns.” By far the biggest oxymoron in the retail business. Financially and environmentally disastrous, and yet promoted with reckless abandon.

I do wonder how the sustainability trend collides with the returns trend. There is no argument that returns are wasteful and damaging to the environment, especially for online purchased items even when they are returned in-store. Yet the same consumer is looking for sustainably-produced goods and carbon footprint impact information. In the end instant gratification wins out against environmentalism I think for many consumers.

There’s an old direct response selling rule: the more you have to give away (discounts, free shipping, etc), the more likely a product will be returned, a subscription cancelled, etc.

No one should be surprised that there’s a returns problem. Online retailers are working so hard to find revenue (ignoring whether it’s profitable or not) that there is bound to be a massive returns problem.

We are training consumers to plan to return products. Why should we be surprised when they do what we’ve trained them to do?

Ah, how I yearn for the “good old days” when we focused on selling good products to people in well merchandised stores without chasing the shiny baubles which capture headlines so well. Of course that world can’t exist any more. But we should note that serious return problems generally only happened when the product failed to meet expectations.

But no, we shouldn’t be training customers to over-order and return.

This is a poor perspective on the online business model. The extrapolated rate of returns (which this article cites) is not a valid business profitability tool, and has not been for the simple reason that it is included in the COGS of the retailer, manufacturer, etc. Focusing on this only distorts the rest of the equation that any balance sheet reflects, and any good investor or businessman references in their decision making. It is absurd to even believe that a 26 percent increase from UPS (who by the way does not handle returns as a separate portion of its freight management system), for one day, means that all business has a 26 percent increase of their return rate. Even worse, this does not account for the return allowances that all suppliers must pay as part of their business with Amazon (and other retailers), which many times goes unused.

The easier retailers make it for shoppers to shop for and return products, the more stuff shoppers will buy, without a concern if the product is the right one because of easy return policies. Should retailers backpedal on return policies? No, they really shouldn’t. However, there is no reason why they cannot insert more “are you sure you want this product?” messages during the purchase process to eliminate at least a few more returns … especially on apparel and footwear products.

AI and other enabling technologies should help with the reduction of return rates in the future. These may include virtual stylists, applications designed to use body scans to best size products for customers, or chatbots that help with selecting the right size for products. The enabling technologies that use machine learning to help style select can also minimize returns by using data to pinpoint which styles are best for customers. Returns will always be a cost of doing business and will not be eliminated but companies can continue to work to reduce the number of returns with today’s and future technologies.

Rates will continue to rise as consumers expect easy returns. In addition, most have figured out the proper selection of a reason for a free online return, namely, “product did not match online description.”

Increased returns will need to be incorporated into product pricing and the cost of doing business. Going back to more stringent policies or customer restrictions is not a viable solution.

When the home is the fitting room, and the kitchen counter is the display rack, it’s no wonder returns are high. How many dresses does a consumer bring into a fitting room before deciding on one — or none? Gene, your story is spot on.

Perhaps StitchFix has it right: build returns into the business model. Ultimately, I believe retailers will need to do just that, even if they don’t employ a subscription model.