David Gonzalez – 5:08
However, 25% of returns come back to the retailer and aren’t able to be restocked. So they end up in landfills, like we mentioned, furthermore, that 75% that isn’t thrown out isn’t just simply restock. So like we’ve been saying, it gets vetted, what condition is it in can it be restocked? Where should it be stocked? So you can see that it’s not profitable. So large retailers tend to just throw away goods because of the cost is lower than finding another sales or a cycling channel.
So obviously this can take a huge hit to retailers’ margins. But Travis why else should they care about this?
Travis Farey – 6:11
That’s another great question, David. I think the biggest reason is that this is our planet. We live on it and
we need to take care of it. And we’ve seen in the past, what happens when we don’t take care of our planet. And our shoppers know that as well. In fact, consumer behavior is one of the biggest factors in deciding to become more sustainable for a lot of businesses.
- 35% of respondents said that they actually choose sustainable products to help protect the environment.
- 37% said that they looked for products with environmentally friendly packaging, and
- 41% said that they actually avoided the use of plastics whenever they could.
David Gonzalez – 6:58
Yeah. Wow. That’s a lot of stats wanting to keep them rolling?
Travis Farey – 7:03
Yeah, of course! Actually, according to those same findings:
- 78% of people are more likely to purchase a product that is clearly labeled as environmentally friendly.
- 75% of millennials are actually willing to pay more for an environmentally sustainable product
- 77% of Americans are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy.
- And 76% of Americans said that they would actually switch their preferred brand if they were offsetting carbon emissions.
David Gonzalez – 7:33
Those are some great stats, thank you. But it is a catch-22, right? So shoppers want sustainability, and retailers want to practice sustainability. But like we established, for every exchange, driver has to go pick up that package, get it back to the warehouse team, decide what to do with it…And with every exchange that happens, there’s more of an impact this has on the environment. So what can this lead to?
Unfortunately, it’s an effect called greenwashing.
Greenwashing is when a company spends some more time and money on advertising the fact they’re environmentally friendly as opposed to actually offsetting their carbon footprint. So maybe the answer to this problem doesn’t lie in incentivizing more exchanges. Maybe the answer lies in data.
So some listeners aren’t gonna like to hear this, but 2/3 or 66% of the time,
a return is a retailer’s fault. 23% of the time a shopper received the wrong item, 22% of the time the item wasn’t depicted correctly on the website, 20% of the time a shopper received a damaged item. And depending on which studies you read, some studies even show that eight out of the top 10 reasons for returning an item are completely controllable by the retailer.
