Many Unhappy Returns Coming This Holiday Season

from the not-so-cross-channel dept

While many brick-and-mortar stores are hyping up their "cross-channel" options for customers to buy goods online and return them at a local store, a new study suggests that most retailers aren't prepared for a situation where many people do so. Most have set up very simple systems that just won't scale. For example, many require a manager to get involved and "override" the system to process the return. Also, the study found that a significant number of returns required in-store employees to phone the e-commerce operations to complete the the return. While it's nice that stores are finally offering this functionality, a bad implementation isn't going to do them much good if they get swamped with in-store returns.