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?