Sustaining Profitability and the Environment: A Retail Necessity

COVID-19 has had a substantial impact on all industries, and retailers, in particular, are still struggling to make sense of changing consumer dynamics and new shopping realities. This article is not about this societal crisis, but another more slow-moving....

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Will BOPIS and BORIS Replace Delivery?

Covid-19 accelerated omnichannel shopping trends, such as BOPIS (buy-online-pickup-in-store) and BORIS (buy-online-return-in-store). Now retailers need to have a deep understanding of those consumer omnichannel purchase and return behaviors. Case in point,....

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Is Free Shipping Dead?

Everyone knows shipping is costly. Return shipping can be even costlier. In an effort to give consumers what they want, when they want it (aka good consumer service), retailers are running up costs for labor and packaging by shipping one item at a time. This....

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6 Trends for 2022

What are the big trends in retail? See six highlights in under six minutes. Retail Touchpoints magazine interviewed retail technology vendors at NRF Big Show 2022. They summarized powerful trends in the marketplace: the convergence of social commerce and....

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Return Rates Affects Everyone, Not Just Retailers

As a retailer, you know that the cost of returns is much more than the loss of a sale. Returns and return fraud have a cascading effect on your business’ revenue and profit. The National Retail Federation has compiled returns data for 2022 in a comprehensive....

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Retail Returns: Your Problem Isn’t Logistics

Overview “Sell to your consumers wherever they want to shop” was the philosophy behind much of the current expansion in retail. Store and ecommerce channels were designed to make buying easy. Receiving and processing returned merchandise, however, was a....

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8 Thorns That May Be Harming Your Ecommerce Return Experience

In the fable “Androcles and the Lion,” a boy removes a thorn from a lion’s paw and gains the lion’s loyalty for life. Recently, our team of researchers vetted the ecommerce return process at 55 omnichannel retail chains in search of thorns. They found eight....

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The Results Are In: 2021 Holiday Sales and Returns Were Like No Other

The 2021 holiday shopping season was like no other, and it surprised us all. Retail sales from November 1st to December 31st grew 14.1% over the 2020 sales numbers, despite the challenges facing shoppers and retailers. And this rise in sales (especially....

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Are Your Omnichannel Return Capabilities Falling Behind the Curve?

The past few years delivered unprecedented growth in online shopping and a corresponding explosion in return rates. Ecommerce returns are now two to three times greater than returns for brick-and-mortar purchases. In 2021, one out of five of online purchases....

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Omnichannel Returns: What Your P&L Can’t Ignore

You may have noticed that your consumers tend to initiate returns after their online purchases more frequently than after their in-store shopping. On average, returns for ecommerce transactions are two to three times more likely than purchases made in....

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Consumers’ Pandemic Shopping Trends

As the global population has endured the COVID-19 pandemic over the past 20 months, consumers have altered their daily lives and routines in many ways. From the abrupt shutdown of non-essential businesses, schools, and stores, consumers have had little choice....

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5 Ways Siloed Shopper Data Complicates Your Sales and Return Transactions

Shoppers typically think of a retailer’s ecommerce site and brick-and-mortar location as extensions of the same store. They may shop through a single channel or buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) or buy-online-return-in-store (BORIS). Regardless, they expect....

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