After weeks (or in some circumstances, months!) of vacation buying, most shoppers are on the brink of sit back and loosen up with an eggnog in hand and open their items. Sounds merry, proper? Sadly, retailers nonetheless have a very good chunk of their vacation work forward of them: the not-so-beloved custom of sorting by means of buyer returns.
For buyers, returning objects continues to be simpler than ever and even with up to date return insurance policies and restrictions, the quantity of returns continues to develop: based on the NRF, about 17% of all items bought in 2024 might be returned, totaling $890 billion. That’s up from 15% in 2023.
Put up-holiday returns make up a big portion of this quantity and the mountains of stock coming again to manufacturers and retailers this winter—notably in early Q1—represents a serious monetary and logistical problem.
Returns by the Numbers
Whereas “mountains of stock” may sound dramatic, it’s not removed from the reality. Right here’s what manufacturers and retailers might be coping with this season:
40% of shoppers will return a present
General $170 billion value of merchandise might be returned post-holiday
Almost half of that complete might be from on-line purchases
25% of all returns happen round Christmastime
If the package deal has been opened or a seal damaged, the merchandise won’t return on main cabinets
What Can B-Inventory Inform You About Vacation Returns?
The price of sorting, inspecting, repackaging, storing, transporting, and remarketing so many items by means of main gross sales channels can simply exceed their worth—even for objects in pristine situation. For this reason nearly all of objects don’t return on main cabinets.
Fifteen years’ value of B2B resale information provides B-Inventory a broad perspective on secondary market traits and permits us to ship tailor-made, actionable insights to our prospects, together with at this time’s prime retailers, manufacturers, and OEMs. Right here’s a fast dive into what the post-holiday information throughout our platform reveals:
The most typical post-holiday returns embody girls’s stylish attire, toys, specialty kitchen objects, and instruments
The quantity of ecommerce stock will increase by 36% following Christmas
General stock offered rises by 30% from January by means of March
The variety of truckload-sized numerous buyer returns doubles in January by means of March
77% of all merchandise offered on B-Inventory is buyer returns
How Can Manufacturers & Retailers Reply?
The easiest way for companies to clear congested warehouses whereas rapidly turning this stock to money is to leverage a know-how and data-backed B2B resale platform like B-Inventory. Our platform gives:
Entry to the proper consumers keen on merchandise throughout all classes, portions, and situations.
Versatile resale choices for a various technique focused at any aim—to recuperate money, clear warehouse house rapidly, or guarantee model management
Fast cycle occasions that scale to predictably transfer out extra stock that may in any other case be merely taking on house
Model and channel management by way of customized guidelines and restrictions to assist guarantee your items are offered how, the place, and to whom you want
Knowledge-backed resale Insights to assist perceive shifting purchaser demand, optimize resale technique, and precisely forecast pricing
An automatic resale course of by way of devoted account managers and automatic options that make promoting to 1,000 consumers as straightforward as promoting to at least one
With the brand new yr quick approaching and one other wave of post-holiday returns looming, what you are promoting doesn’t should be left holding the bag.
To study extra about what B-Inventory can do for you, post-holiday and all yr lengthy attain out to our B2B resale specialists to schedule a reside platform demo.
