MHD SUPPLY CHAIN
COVID-19 has made 2020 the year of accelerated online shopping.
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Raghav Sibal, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand, Manhattan Associates, sits down with Brittany Coles to reveal how record growth in e-commerce has changed returns management.
he 2020 pandemic will soon be marked in history as the gold rush era for global e-commerce operations. Data can’t keep up to the same speed as order volumes, with most major Australian retail brands experiencing an online growth rate of at least 60 to 80 per cent. Myer reported an 800 per cent overall growth in e-commerce sales during its Easter sale, and now into the second half of this year, extraordinary order volumes continue to soar. There has been a heightened emphasis on external order fulfilment from logistic hubs due to the surge in online shopping, but how are companies coping when a record amount of orders are being returned? Reverse logistics is part of an organisation’s integrated supply chain
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management. It’s one of those areas in operations that companies put to one side because it’s really difficult to get right. However, this is the year of accelerated digital shopping and organisational transformation, when the need for a stronger returns policy was put in place by many retailers following extreme order fulfilment during COVID-19. Raghav Sibal, Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand at Manhattan Associates says that traditionally in western markets when customers make a purchase from a physical retail store, they have always had the opportunity to go back and return their goods. “With the onset of e-commerce, returns have now become a big factor as part of omnichannel retail, turning
what was once a fairly low returns market into a major part of retail operations,” he says.
THE AGE OF FREE RETURNS “Eighty per cent of returners are considered to be the best customers a brand can have and 95 per cent of their loyalty is driven by a seamless returns process,” Raghav says. The reverse logistics market was already anticipated to grow substantially this year, owing to adoption of blockchain technology in the logistics industry. The major driver of the reverse logistics market is the expanded e-commerce industry, however despite this need, inventory management is one of the most underinvested areas in retail. Free returns are a particularly
