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$70.5 Billion Worth of Gift Returns Could Cause a Second ‘Shipaggedon’
Managing the post-holiday returns crush is a big ‘reverse logistics’ challenge every year, but this year it could be tougher than ever
$70.5 billion: That’s the potential aggregate value of gifts that will be returned following the 2020 holiday season, according to a study by consultancy CBRE. Managing the post-holiday returns crush is a big “reverse logistics” challenge every year, but this year it could be tougher than ever. Marketplace reports managers of supply chains already dealing with record online orders will need to find “space to put all those items we’ve sent back.”
Returns are an annual post-holiday ritual: A 2019 survey from Oracle found a whopping 77% of consumers expected to return at least one gift; and 55% of those who receive “unwanted gifts or holiday items” prefer to return them within a month, according to the National Retail Federation. This year, a huge spike in online shopping spurred by the pandemic — jumping as much as 40% to $235 billion, or 32% of retail sales, per CBRE — could lead to even more returns than usual, as physical goods fail to match expectations set in digital shopping contexts.
