“Ah, she must be going to return what she bought, don’t cha reckon?”
I was having a coffee with Tim, a senior manager from a fellow logistics firm. The ‘she’ he was talking about was a fellow cafe-goer, coffee cup in one hand, ASOS bag under the other arm.
“Parcels were delivered to her door, why does she have to make the returns. Now, this is one of the biggest challenges of online shopping.”
Say no more, Tim. Finding new ways to handle returns and exchanges, when the whole transaction has been handled remotely, is proving to be a challenge for retailers and logistics firms alike. A consumer having to move to make a return doesn’t fit in with the super convenience of having things delivered to your door.
So, offering return services has to be the new edge to any courier enterprise. In fact, offering return services has already proven to be a sales booster for ASOS, so it really should be a sound business model to follow.
“They don’t have choices. In fact, in Australian, consumers get to told what to do by retailers. If they were told to returned the goods to a location, they will. If they were told that someone will come and pick it up, they will also do so.”
This is sadly the reality. However, if you think the power is in retailers hands, this is also not true. This is under the control of logistics companies. The options were given to retailers, and hence implied to their consumers.
Companies like Go People have invented ways not only to make deliveries faster, but also allow consumers to make returns easier. Making logistics solutions more consumer-centric is the focus of new age courier companies.