Product returns: an opportunity to shift towards an access-based economy?

Abstract

With the rise in online purchases, returns polices have become more lenient to maximise sales, leading to increased product returns. This results in considerable costs to businesses due to com-plex returns systems, and environmental costs due to unnecessary transportation and waste. Unsustainable consumption poses a threat to our environment, and access-based business mod-els whereby products are borrowed/rented rather than purchased, have been proposed as a way to align customer needs, business success and sustainability. Product returns often constitute a form of informal or illegitimate borrowing as goods are bought with the intention of being re-turned. In this discussion paper we propose that, instead of being viewed as a threat to business, issues with high product returns could be seen as an opportunity to switch to an access-based model. As product returns escalate, businesses will need to invest substantially in their reverse supply chains. We propose that a more strategic approach might be to leapfrog the costly stage of develop-ing more efficient returns systems, and move straight to formalising product returns as the new normal for those goods that would best suit an access-based model, so that processes are streamlined around bor-rowing and returning rather than around sales.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Denise Baden: orcid.org/0000-0002-2736-4483

ORCID for Regina Frei: orcid.org/0000-0002-0953-6413

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