"You can expect a good Christmas campaign with relevant growth, around 2 digits, consumption," Enrique Porta, KPMG distribution expert predicted in November.Alcista vision that Deloitte also shared, which expected Spanish homes to allocate 14% more.
In the absence of knowing whether the forecast is fulfilled or not, the truth is that after the consumerist passage of Christmas a new period is activated: the returns.A user normalized act, but that entails a direct impact on retailers accounts and in the environment.
Porta, in this sense, explains that the returns reduce the availability of stock for sale, increases the costs of operation by incorporating the reverse logistics and makes expensive, if not impossible, the reintegration of the products returned for its subsequent sale, which whichforces price reduction for liquidation.
In the United States alone, returns in 2020 were engulfed 10.6% of sales that were generated in the Commerce sector, according to the data sent by the National Retail Federation (NRF).This is a 428 movement.000 million dollars (just over 378.860 million in euros).
The incipient forecasts point to a larger number by 2021: the logistics firm Optoro Vaticina that only the Christmas purchases of the Americans will generate returns worth 120.000 million dollars - more than 106.200 million euros–.
At this point the expert also coincides, who points out that the incidence of omicron sucks a greater transfer towards the online and with it, an increase in the total rate of returns compared to other years.
Thus, the standardization of returns has online trade as an undisputed and fashion.
Dopamine of immediacy: epicenter of online returns
Returns find their biggest epicenter on the online channel.In the year of the pandemic they represented 18% of all online purchases that were made in the United States, which means talking about 102.000 million dollars (something plus 90.000 million euros), according to the NRF.
Situation that if it is extrapolated to Spain is not different, and it is not because the national online trade starts from an unbeatable situation: during the pandemic, sales multiplied by 5, a rhythm higher than the occurrence in China or the United States, according to theGlobal McKinsey and Company consultant.
In this sense, Porta explains that Spain is "touring the 5 -year way" in months ".This acceleration, he adds, has accentuated the same as returns.
At this point, Gema Gómez, executive director of the Slow Fashion Next platform, which e-commerce returns continue to grow year after year."In 2019, Spain was like the fourth European country with more returns".
The rules of the game between physical and online trade are not the same, when talking about returns, either.
The president of the Spanish Retail Association, Laureano Turienzo, argues that in the e-commerce there is "another commercial impulse"."Digital sales base their business model on" photographs and rapid delivery dopamine, "adds, and from there, the background of returns.
In this way, says the manager that while the average return in physical stores moves in a fork between 8% and 10%, in the online environment it is, in the best case, in 30%.
The periods in which these returns are produced also matter: only on the subsequent dates of the large commercial campaigns such as Black Friday and Christmas the percentage rises to 50%, according to a report by the EAE Business School and remembers Gomez.
Of course, Turienzo clarifies, that these proportions are given in categories more prone to change such as electronics or textile.
Fashion returns: a problem that giants push
Reuters/Henry Nicholls
Fashion is, historically, the commercial category that brings together more returns by its own idiosyncrasy that is based on the tendency and in the natural doubts that generate sizes and styles among consumers.
The figures referred to by the NRF also attests to this: 12.2% of what was sold in fashion in the United States was returned, this places it at the head of the returns, only behind the mobile components.
But in addition to the nature of the sector, there are other reasons that explain why fashion has been consecrated as the cradle of returns.
The first is that the pandemic has raised the digital channels of textile giants –inditex scored 6.612 millones y H&M, 5.172–.And nothing compared to the more than 63.500 million yuan (9.715 million euros), which is estimated that the unknown Shein generated.
A trend confirmed by the Textile Employer Cotex.Its president, Eduardo Zamácola, recalls that online sales represented 18% of the national turnover of the sector, compared to 10% of previous years and the resounding general fall of 41%.
Much more unnoticed has passed the trend encouraged by business giants for converting households into mere testers.
The clearest case is that of Amazon that has been providing, for years, the possibility of receiving any garment and not paying it up to 7 days.Then, of course, you can return everything you want.
Beyond the giant giant founded by Bezos, the problem is postulated endemic and extrapolable to almost any textile colossus to which you look.
The president of the Spanish Retail Association even goes beyond and predicts that putting the client in the center - known as Customer Centric - will end the model itself.
"The textile giants have become mere distributors," adds Turienzo.Vision also shared by the main head of the employer, who speaks of a loss of value by the product itself.
"The enormous facilities that we have given the brands to return clothes is an issue that has sharpened in recent years," says Zamacola.The Executive does not avoid responsibilities: "We have fallen into this error and we have not measured the cost it has for companies".
"We have made a price war, with ridiculous declines, continuous promotions and all kinds of facilities for return.It has been installed - prosecuts - selling at any price, making a box instead of benefit ".
"You have to be careful if you want to be sustainable in the long term," he says.A concern that Jorge Mas also shares, a retail expert: "We are creating immediate and little responsible and conscious consumption".
Given this, an obligatory metamorphosis seems clear: "Marcaspoco are going to modify the policy of returns".
When all environmental effort is diluted
"It is a great delay because all these merchandise are moving through cities without providing any value, with the consequent greenhouse gas emissions that affect our health and climate change," says Gómez.
But the impact: "In 2020, only in the United States 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were generated.And we continue to increase ".
"Sustainable consumption becomes incoherent," adds the expert.Reflection that Gomez also buys: "All the economic, human and environmental effort has not served at all when a impulse purchase is made".
Porta commitment to some operational keys to reverse the situation such as renewing the fleets of last mile vehicles, making distribution routes more efficient and giving value to the physical store as a proximity hub for the delivery, collection or return of online orders.
But within these lines of action, Porta does not forget another: "You have to educate the customer, give greater transparency to the customer on the environmental impact that its purchase decisions has".
