On paper, returns look simple: click
Return, fill out a form, slap on a label, wait for a warehouse clerk to decide the item’s fate. In practice, three long-ignored cracks have widened into crevasses:
- Manual bureaucracy. RMA forms live in the web portal, yet the authoritative inventory data sit in the ERP; their IDs rarely match SKU attributes such as size or color.
- Physical unpacking. Every box is sliced open, garment unfolded, photographed—five to seven minutes per unit. Multiply by thousands a day.
- Data void. “Didn’t fit” is logged as free text and never flows back into demand planning or product design.
When customer-acquisition money was cheap and growth masked inefficiency, retailers swallowed the pain. Today, higher ad costs, inflation, and greener consumer expectations turn returns into a
profit drain retailers can no longer ignore.