There is a famous saying in the e-commerce industry along the lines of returns and the cost of deliveries saying that higher the returns, lower the margins. This is true in the current world scenario because Amazon has provided its customers with such a good return policy that everyone is hooked to the fact that they can return the product if they don’t like it and no questions will be asked. After that, customers expect the same from other retailers in the e-commerce industry and not everyone has the logistics as good as Amazon so they all struggle to provide the same service.
This is the reason why retailers in the e-commerce space hope that they don’t get any returns on their orders and many of them don’t even accept return unless and until their goods are damaged during transit. Now, e-commerce retailers are hoping that the AI technology will help them to boost their sales and more importantly reduce return rate on their products.
Talking about how AI can drive more sales for retailers, an expert said “Apps and streaming tech make it possible for consumers to shop live with influencers and to bring shoppers and sales associates together, live, to review merchandise and buy it without being in a store. At the same time, innovations in AI allow brands to deliver personalized offers or recommendations in context and in real time to consumers as they are browsing a site so they can make more sales.”
Another aspect where retailers can reduce returns especially in the e-commerce space is to provide virtual try-on technology. For example, if you are selling watches then you need to have tech that lets them virtually try the product on their wrist so that they can understand how it will actually feel when they get their hands on the product. Due to this, the customers who don’t like the product on their wrist will not order them in the first place and that will reduce returns to a greater extent compared to now where there is no option to try it on so customers can only decide whenever they get the product physically.
