Since I became Executive Director of the RLA in August 2016, we have been more engaged than ever before in our 15-year history to speak at industry events all over the world. From CES in Las Vegas, to Intralogistics in Mexico City and Paris, to the National Postal Forum in San Antonio, to CeBIT in Germany, and many others, the RLA has been invited to speak about reverse logistics to thousands of attendees and companies who are trying to improve their returns processes. Companies are understanding the need to make the customer experience better to reduce returns. Companies are looking for the best and next practices to process returns more efficiently as the volume continues to grow due to the E-Commerce and the IoT (Internet of Things) effects. And companies are finding new channels for returned goods to get higher asset recovery in the secondary marketplace.

Reduce, reuse, and resell are the three basic aspects of reverse logistics. RLA member companies are getting better at all three aspects and making a significant difference in their P&L financials. Companies not in the RLA are learning more about the true costs of not doing something with returns. I am proud to have the RLA deliver these messages at so many industry events, and we always find new companies who should be in the RLA. The RLA membership list is growing (and you can see the increased pages of members in this magazine) and there are more RL professionals on our communications lists than ever.

Please share your RLA communications with another colleague. We know that many thousands of you already forward RL Magazine to others, the RLA SmartBrief newsletter subscriber list is growing, and we see new names “liking” and “sharing” our posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook. Thank you, and watch us continue to grow because of your support.

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Tony Sciarrotta
Best regards, Tony Sciarrotta tony@rla.org