Publisher: NRF & APPRISS Retail
Publisher Data: 2022
■ Retail sales are on track to increase between 6% and 8% year-overyear. Non-store and online sales year-over-year, which are included in the total figure, are expected to grow between 11% and 13%.
■ As retail sales have continued to grow, return rates and return fraud rates have remained essentially flat year-over-year: 16.5% in 2022 compared with 16.6% in 2021.
■ For the first time since 2019, when online data was captured as part of this survey, online return rates are in line with overall return rates and have dropped by 21%.
■ Holiday return rates are also essentially flat year-over-year at 17.9%, but holiday return fraud decreased slightly from 10.8% to 10.1%.
■ Of the nearly 44% of respondents planning to hire to handle returns during the holidays, more than 70% intend to add staff to stores.
■ Responsibility for returns has shifted from ecommerce to supply chain in scenarios where one department is responsible for both in-store and online returns and when in-store and online returns are handled separately.
■ Buy online, return in-store (BORIS) return fraud is expected to be 48% higher than fraud in returns to non-store locations, potentially spotlighting an area to further streamline data and process protocols when multichannel return processes are present.