Inventory management and the future of returns in Retail: the importance of efficient logistics

The mutated international context imposes logistics and increasingly efficient inventory management, while the world of fashion (and Retail in general) wonders about the sustainability of free returns. Bizeta’s ID-STORE is the ideal solution for this new scenario.

Supply chain and inventory variation

The first signs of a significant change arrived last summer. During previous months, the slow-down in the supply chain and the block on ports had led to demand that widely exceeded supply. Retailers reacted by placing large orders in advance but, in the meantime, consumer habits and the international scenario changed once again.

This has resulted in a level of inventory without precedent. The market had in fact overestimated the demand for 2022; fashion then experimented with a sudden change in tastes, from casual and activewear to more formal and elegant clothing. The increase in the costs of energy and transport, thus, completed the picture: warehouses remained full of items that did not perform as expected.

The future of free returns

Furthermore, the debate on free returns arrived to make the context even more challenging. Once, an invaluable option for establishing customer loyalty, now this business model is a subject of dispute for its economic and environmental sustainability. It is, therefore, recent news that fast fashion and e-commerce leaders are doing without it, introducing fees to be applied on returns.

Then again, this practice required alternative solutions for some time. A report just a few months ago showed that, in 2020 alone, 2.6 million tons of returns ended up at dumping grounds. Also, the same year, the process of shipping returned items led to emissions of 16 million tons of CO2. Industry experts have, in fact, estimated that approximately one-fourth of these returns is discarded, since it costs less to dispose of the products rather than manage and resell them.

ID-STORE: the Bizeta software that simplifies logistics

In a constantly changing scenario, with the necessity to have an always optimal inventory, Bizeta has, this time too, the winning answer. ID-STORE is just the software to simplify logistics, shipments and warehouse management. An application for goods handling, inventories and labeling at the store.

Moreover, the software allows to speed up and optimize operations before, during and after sales, reducing errors and stockouts: in fact, it is not the operator to manually verify data, but the handheld. This solution then offers the end customer a purchase experience without friction, building customer loyalty thanks to an improved service and constantly updated information.