You’ve probably read the headlines about major retailers and their massive glut of returned inventory. Some are so under water, in fact, that they’re offering refunds on returns and sending customers home with the purchases still in hand—there’s no room to store or process them. This comes as a result of early pandemic scarcity, a flurry in consumer goods purchasing, and now inflation. What’s in order is a solid reverse logistics approach.
Reverse logistics—the practice of managing returns—has always been essential. In today’s retail climate, however, it needs to be a core competency. Warehouses need to dedicate space to the tasks, allot enough labor to it, and add the types of automation to get the job done. If you can’t accomplish those important steps, the option to outsource your returns processing is one to consider; today there are myriad companies who make this their specialty. Whatever the case, reverse logistics is a bigger part of the supply chain than ever before, and you need to treat it that way.
How do you handle reverse logistics?
