More than £2.5 billion worth of online orders are to be returned to retailers over the festive period, according to LCP Consulting. The majority will be returned between mid-December, following Black Friday, to mid-January.
“The price retailers have to pay for online growth is pretty substantial,” said Stuart Higgins, director – retail, LCP Consulting. “Not only will this flood of returns put additional demands on retailers back-end operations during their busiest online sales week of the year, it will also impact their stores as a third of returns will come back into stores just as they’re launching their Christmas and January sales.”