News / Retailers must defuse 'ticking time-bomb' of returns threatening their supply chains

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A forgotten corner of the logistics industry is rapidly becoming a new battleground where retailers can win and lose significant numbers of customers.

With the rapid uptake of online retailing, a major headache for retailers is how to develop a cost-effective returns policy. E-commerce experts have described the growing amount of returns of unwanted goods as a “ticking time-bomb” that threatens to destroy multichannel retailers’ balance sheets and throw supply chains into chaos.

A recent report by Gartner outlined the central problem ...