The electricity business industry is boosted, the return problem is very headache

December 24 News, according to foreign media reports, although free shipping and easy return policy to boost the e-commerce industry, but the return problem also makes business headaches. Now, the channel begins to study its own order data, allowing the purchaser to retain the product it has taken.

Jasmine Kurt Salmon, a retail consultancy, points out that there is a hidden secret behind the boom in the electronics industry: The return rate is actually as high as one-third per cent of all online sales. And this return rate is still on the rise. The logistics company's combined Parcel Service (UPS) expects the fourth-quarter return rate to increase by 15% per cent year-on-year. This is undoubtedly a huge and growing cost for retailers.

Holiday is the peak of return. So the channel from this year began to comb past transactions, screen out those who often return, so that the shop better decision-making, but also to avoid the buyer to produce regret mentality.

Fashion discount dealer Rue La La is testing a program. The program allows customers to view their own purchase records, as well as to view other customers ' approximate purchase records, making them make a more sensible choice for their first purchase.

For example, a customer who always buys the same brand of small and medium white shirts may see a pop-up message, "Are you sure you want to buy a small shirt?" Two sizes of shirts you purchased 5 times, but the trumpet was all back. ”

Some customers may scoff at this hint of size, but the chief executive of La La Rue has not seen any negative feedback on the experiment.

Rue la La is close to $500 million trillion last year, while the company handles returns at a cost of $5 million.

Another retail firm, Modnique.com, has led buyers of often-returned goods to buy their clothing and shoes, by giving them coupons for jewellery, which are usually less often returned. QVC, another home net-buying company, sends e-mails to customers to tell them how to assemble and use them when the product arrives.

"Customers are like a group of shares, and value increases and falls," said Omer Artun, the current chief executive of Agilone, a former marketing executive and information mining firm. You don't want to give up on customers who don't have much of a profit, but have a better attitude towards those ' excellent ' customers and be enthusiastic about them. ”

In this way, those who return often may find that they can no longer get the discount information, while those around the larger consumption of friends, they always buy cheap things.

Buyers with high returns, retailers will adjust their treatment, as is the case with Paula, a 54-year-old teacher in Massachusetts. She recently bought 10 pairs of different color trousers on the gap company's website, but returned 7 of them. Paula was buying Christmas gifts for her four children, and she asked them to choose the style they wanted and then returned what they didn't want.

Paula knew that the seller had borne the cost of the return, but said the retailer's loose shopping policy had driven her to buy more. "It's normal, after all, I'm a customer," she said.

The company will also track users who return only once, and those who only enjoy the pleasure of trying out at home.

The biggest reason for return is size. To give buyers a better choice of size, Macy's and Nordstrom are working with the data analytics company true fit. The start-up company can analyze the data to let customers know what kind of clothes and shoes they really need in their daily lives. These companies compare the size of their clothing to the information they submit to other retailers, arrive at the right size and give appropriate advice.

Free delivery and return of the rise, and apparel and footwear online sales transactions are inseparable. In the past, shops will charge online shoppers 5 to 10 of dollars in shipping and return costs, as logistics and handling the cost of return. Internet Shoe City Zappos.com and its parent company, Amazon, has been offering looser policies, prompting users to turn their living rooms into cloakroom. As a result, more and more buyers are no longer responsible for the cost of logistics or returns.

Sellers always say that people who return more often buy more. But it's not always the case, and the cost of returns is obviously getting higher. On this Christmas holiday, the cost of the shop is hard to bear, and in order to win the favor of discerning customers, they are already desperately discounting. Statistics show that this year's holiday sales are expected to grow 3.9% from last year.

The total value of QVC's return products accounted for 19.4% of total merchandise revenues last year, compared with 18.9% in 2010. The company is now starting to provide after-sales service to the purchaser, which is accompanied by a tutorial video message that teaches users how to assemble a vacuum cleaner or with a scarf.

The return rate reached its peak last year in a QVC sale of facial physiotherapy equipment. The company then began sending videos to buyers about how to use the product, with a 30% per cent drop in returns. QVC estimates that this eliminates the 55,000 dollar return cost.

Sometimes, companies like Amazon offer gift cards or small discounts to frustrated users to persuade users not to return them.

One case is that a table tennis case with a price of $700 was crushed on the way to the logistics. When the buyer called the Amazon Customer Service hotline, the customer service representative offered to offer a 140 dollar discount on the assumption that the buyer would not return the goods.

"We support our customer service to solve problems directly for our customers," said an Amazon spokeswoman. ”

Similarly, on the Modnique.com website, customer service can arrange a certain amount of "remedial" measures every day. These measures can be discounts, gift cards, or other things that make buyers happy. The return cost of the site is equivalent to 15% of the revenue.

"Returns sometimes mean spending more money," said the chief executive of the site. "People are determined to buy one more. ”