“If you’ve got the systems and analytics to identify what’s coming back and feed that into the forward supply chain, you can start factoring that in when you’re determining your actual demand and upstream ordering.”

– Curtis Greve, Vice President of Liquidation and Remarketing for Inmar

The surging growth of ecommerce has provided a clear reason to focus attention on the post-purchase consumer returns pipeline. This new source of returns has dramatically expanded the scope and the requirements facing retailers and manufacturers. They can no longer start handling returns from the time they arrive at the return center – the effort begins when the consumer decides they want to return an item. Keeping up with the credit and customer service implications of this change is a significant challenge.

On this episode of Supply Chain Now, Curtis Greve, Vice President of Liquidation and Remarketing for Inmar- the largest reverse logistics provider in the US, and Tony Sciarrotta, Executive Director of the Reverse Logistics Association, provide their insights as part of the Reverse Logistics Series.

Curtis and Tony join Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton to discuss:

· The importance of approaching returns and reverse logistics through an expansive ‘ecosystem’ approach

· How the market value of goods affects the returns process, whether they can flow through traditional reverse logistics or need alternate handling to protect brand value in the eyes of the consumer

· Ways in which retailers can improve the customer experience starting at the moment of purchase to streamline and even minimize the need for returns