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Kelly Berbert

Gear Up for a Record-Breaking Returns Season

by Kelly Berbert

It’s here. We’ve just entered the holiday shopping season, and hopefully, you have already geared up for another record-breaking season of shipping, including record-breaking returns. According to Adobe’s Holiday Shopping Forecast for 2021opens in new tab, ecommerce businesses will hit record demands, driving online spending this holiday season to $207 billion. That means holiday spending will top $200 billion for the first time. And with all those holiday purchases comes a more significant number of returns – at least 30% of all online purchases get returned per ecommerce statistics from Invespopens in new tab.

Hence, it’s essential to prepare for Return-a-Palooza. Yes, the January rush of return shipping after the holiday season has earned its name. If you haven’t yet thought of how to optimize your return shipping, don’t worry; there’s still time to do it (but really, you should do it now), and we’re here to offer some tips.

Gear up with USPS Pay-on-Delivery Returns

The USPS has a unique returns service, USPS Pay-on-Delivery Returns, that has benefits that many other mail carriers don’t offer.

The benefits of USPS Pay-on-Delivery Returns:

  • It’s cost-saving. You don’t pay for the USPS return label until the return package is delivered back to you, hence the name “pay-on-delivery.” This is superior to other carriers’ pay-on-first-scan return options.
  • It’s flexible. Because you’re never charged for unused USPS return labels, you are free to provide return labels either upon customer request or with every outbound shipment without worrying about added label cost.
  • It’s easy on the customer. USPS labels come with QR codes, so your customers don’t need to hassle printing their USPS labels before going to the post office. Instead, your printer-less customers can take their digital QR code and package directly to the post office, where a USPS label will be printed for them.

Also, with USPS’s many service levels and package options, you can choose the shipping option for your USPS returns that works best for your business. For example, some ecommerce businesses don’t deem the speed of delivery as important for their returns. With USPS returns, just because you sent your outbound shipment through an expedited service to ensure a positive customer experience, that doesn’t mean you need to use the same service for the return of that shipment. Note that USPS return labels can also be used where USPS was not used for the outbound delivery.

Better returns mean a better business

Outbound shipments are only half the battle; returns are the other half. According to Invesp, 92% of consumers say they are more likely to be a return customer if the returns process provided by the online business is easy, and 67% of ecommerce shoppers check for the return policy for making a purchase. As customers consider returning a package as part of their purchase decision, please keep it simple and easy. With the coming tide of end-of-year holidays, it’s time to optimize your returns options.

Talk to a shipping expert and get set up on USPS Pay-on-Delivery Returns today! Our team can get you set up with your implementation in just a few minutes.

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