The entrenched practice isn’t disappearing overnight, but “we’re seeing little cracks in it,” says Steve Rop, chief operating officer of goTRG, a reverse-logistics specialist. The reason is one of basic economics: For brands and retailers, e-commerce costs, especially those associated with the movement and processing of returned merchandise, are skyrocketing. “If they want to continue to be profitable and grow the e-commerce channel,” he says, “they’re going to have to do something different with the returns process.”
