Consolidating delivery of all split orders would lower the marketplace return rate by 0.95 percentage points and increase the net value by 1.23 percentage points.
Image: Shutterstock
Consumers want their online orders, and they want them now. That’s the received wisdom anyway, with previous studies showing that companies who deliver quickly can expect to be rewarded with greater spending and word-of-mouth recommendations. Recently there has been pushback on the idea that fast is best.
A sobering statistic: of the approximately $1.29 trillion generated in online retail in the U.S. in 2022, an estimated $212 billion of goods, 16.5%, were returned. Clearly it’s in all interests to reduce this number.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from IESE Business School. www.iese.edu/ Views expressed are personal.]