Report: 54% of Consumers Want to Return Online Purchases in Person

Consumers want to return products in person, even when they’ve purchased the items online.

In fact, 54% of consumers would prefer to drop off their returns at a retailer — either the store where they purchased it or a third-party retailer — rather than having to box up the item and return it via mail or a scheduled home pick-up, according to Happy Returns, a PayPal company.

These consumers find it inconvenient to pack an item and almost half of them don’t have a printer they could use to print return labels, the company said in its second annual consumer report, “Returns Happen.”

Merchants that meet consumers’ demands for convenient returns can benefit in several ways, the report found.

For example, they can prevent the lost sales caused by inconvenient return methods, they can retain the business of customers who have experienced a frictionless return and they can sell products to consumers who have returned an item and are now looking to spend their refund.

There’s also a significant opportunity to harness these benefits as the number of returns is substantial, according to the report.

In fact, half of consumers said they expect to return holiday gifts this year. One in three shoppers said they plan to “bracket” their holiday purchases — buying several items while planning to return some — and one in four said they’ve been returning a larger share of their online purchases because of economic pressures.

“Merchants are facing greater challenges with online returns heading into this holiday shopping season, including increased logistics costs due to inflation, higher return rates as more shopping moves online, and customer expectations for online returns that are easy and free,” Happy Returns Vice President David Sobie said in a press release emailed to PYMNTS.

“Despite these challenges, the growing preference for in-person, box-free returns is a huge opportunity to deliver customers the seamless returns experience they’re looking for, while significantly driving down costs by up to 40%,” Sobie said.

Happy Returns has a Return Bar network with more than 5,000 participating locations that allow consumers to return items in person, without having to box up the item.

This option gives consumers a far easier way to do all those returns and gives retail chains “a new way to acquire customers,” Sobie told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview posted in March.

Read more: PayPal’s Reverse Logistics Unit Brings ‘Happy’ to the Dreary Returns Biz