Dr. Troy A. Montgomery

Inside the reverse logistics education gap and the economic blind spot keeping it invisible Special Guest Blog Post written by Deborah Dull   Tony Sciarrotta has been asking the same question at industry conferences for years. As the Senior Director of Circularity and Reverse Logistics at the National Retail Federation, he knows what answer he’s going to get. But he keeps asking anyway. “Anybody in here go to school for returns management, reverse logistics, circularity? Any degrees in those fields the room?” It’s rare that anyone raises their hand. “That’s what’s wrong with our industry,” Sciarrotta told me at NRF Rev this January, the first conference under NRF’s new reverse logistics banner. “We still need to fix it.”   The Numbers That Should Make Headlines Here’s what makes reverse logistics so fascinating: the scale is staggering, but the infrastructure to support it needs to be stronger. According to the National Retail Federation, American retailers processed approximately $890 billion in returns in 2024 which is roughly 17% of all retail sales – and it’s higher for ecommerce. But that number almost certainly understates reality. “We have a fragmented industry,” Sciarrotta explained. “Where are all those returns going? It has to be…

Warehouses are not running out of labor. They are running out of labor that can sustain the pace. Manual firefighting, overtime, and constant reassignment push skilled associates to burn out faster than they can be replaced. The result is a cycle of turnover, training, and rising labor costs that slow performance and strain budgets. This whitepaper breaks down the current state of labor in distribution, including turnover trends, overtime risk, burnout dynamics, and the true cost of churn. Click here to download and see how labor forces impact throughput, planning, and workforce strategy today.