'Categories like apparel see really, really high return rates in the 10s of percents,' added Raunak Nirmal, who used to work at Amazon and now runs an Amazon aggregator, Acquco, with more than 40 third-party brands. 'Wardrobing where people will order the same thing in three different sizes to see which one fits and then they return the other two, not realizing that those other two most of the time don't go back on that retailer's shelves,' Diggs said. Liquidity Services consumer marketing manager Meredith Diggs explains one way e-commerce has normalized shopping habits that lead to more returns. Now the e-commerce giant says it's 'working toward a goal of zero product disposal.' Last year, it launched new programs to give sellers like Clausen new options to resell returns, or send them to be auctioned off on the liquidation market. UPS predicts the 2021 holiday season will see a 10% increase in returns compared to the year-earlier period, which translates into more waste - and expense - for all online retailers.Īt the head of the pack, Amazon has received mounting criticism over the destruction of millions of items. It comes out of their bottom line and inevitably makes prices go higher.' 'It's falling back on either Amazon or the third-party seller. 'Somebody has to pay for that,' said Micah Clausen, who sells party supplies and home goods on Amazon under a third-party store named Iconikal. Meanwhile, Amazon third-party sellers told CNBC they end up throwing away about a third of returned items. That report says 10.3% of those returns were fraudulent. In 2021, a record $761 billion of merchandise was returned, according to estimates in a new report from the National Retail Federation.

Moore says online purchases are at least three times more likely to be returned than items bought in a store. 'That's the equivalent of the waste produced by 3.3 million Americans in a year.' 'From all those returns, there's now nearly 6 billion pounds of landfill waste generated a year and 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions as well,' said Tobin Moore, CEO of returns solution provider Optoro.

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