Recently, Kohl’s CEO, Michelle Gass, looked back at the past 6 months since coronavirus struck and concluded that the company is focusing on 3 important factors.
According to how Forbes summarized it, the first is digital sales with curbside pickups, the second is customer value, which includes its reward program that just under 50% of its customer base uses. Lastly, the company focuses on its product and stores and makes the required alterations to both in response to the pandemic.
Moreover, Kohl’s is looking to rely on its partnership with Amazon that enables the brand to accept returns for the eCommerce giant – in its stores.
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It started earlier this year, when Kohl’s announced that it accepts Amazon returns at all of its stores, with designated kiosks/counters devoted to the service.
The idea behind it is that customers would pick up something along the way when coming in to make a return – boosting sales.
“It has opened our eyes […] that there are other roles a Kohl’s store can play to the American consumer,” Kohl’s chief technology officer Paul Gaffney said. “This returns program is working. We see the traffic. We’re getting new customers.”
It also strengthens the fact that people are still looking for that physical transaction when returning items. And also avoiding the tedious return process of packaging and mailing it back.
What you may not have known, though, is that returns aren’t always a cause for alarm and don’t always result in churn. Not even for the brand that its products are being returned to. Optimove research finds that customers who make partial returns often indicate that they’re strongly engaged.
And now, the office supply giant, Staples, is also launching a new return program called Express Returns. It will be put in place this January, right in time for the jolliest return-season of the year.
To allow consumers to bring returns to its 1000+ shops, Staples partners with returns and reverse logistics tech firm, Optoro. Customers will get credited for making returns using QR codes on their smartphones.
BOPIS? BORIS!
“Buy online, return in-store is actually a key driver to profitability in e-commerce,” said Adam Vitarello, president and co-founder of Optoro.
“If you can encourage more BORIS – if you can go from 10% to 50% to 80% – it can literally change your economics of e-commerce.”
This strengthens the fact that though consumers enjoy buying online – they still prefer to make the return in-store with a representative – avoiding the required boxing, labeling, and mailing back process.
A Supply Chain Survey on whether the return experience is critical to customer satisfaction found that:
- 84% of respondents said a positive returns experience encourages them to shop with a retailer again.
- 74% noted that U.S. retailers should do more to improve their returns experiences.
- 60% said they would reconsider shopping with a retailer in the future if they had to pay shipping fees to return an item.
- 45% of respondents said they’d prefer shopping with retailers with convenient locations to return an item(s) to.
And so, once you’re done with all the shopping season tasks on your plate, we encourage you to start thinking how you get in on the return business, too.
And in the meantime, click here to learn more about why your product returns could lead to returning customers.
