Name: 【TED】Aparna Mehta: Where do your online returns go? (Where do your online returns go? | Aparna Mehta)
Uploaded: 2018-12-13T17:19:10.000Z
Duration: 7 min 39 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

At one time, I had two or three packages of clothing delivered to me

in a couple different sizes and many colors,

because I did not know what I really wanted.

So I overordered, I tried things on, and then I sent what didn't work back.

Once my daughter was watching me return some of those packages back,

and she said, "Mom, I think you have a problem."

I mean, it's free shipping and free returns, right?

until I heard a statistic at work that shocked me.

You see, I'm a global solutions director for top-tier retail,

and we were in a meeting with one of my largest customers,

One of their biggest concerns was managing returns.

they had 7.5 million pieces of clothing returned to them.

What happens to all these returned clothes?

four billion pounds of returned clothing ends up in the landfill.

That's like every resident in the US did a load of laundry last night

and decided to throw it in the trash today.

My job is to find solutions to logistical issues like these --

So this issue became very personal to me.

I said, "You know what? We have to solve this."

And we can, with some of the existing systems we already have in place.

And then I started to wonder: How did we get here?

I mean, it was only like six years ago when a study recommended

that offering free online returns would drive customers to spend more.

We started seeing companies offering free online returns

to drive more sales and provide a better experience.

is that this would lead to more items being returned as well.

In the US, companies lost 351 billion dollars in sales

Retailers are scrambling to recover their losses.

They try to place that returned item online to be sold again,

Basically, if companies cannot find a place for this item

Suddenly, I felt very guilty for being that shopper,

Who would have thought my innocent shopping behavior

Why does the item have to be returned to the retailer in the first place?

What if when a person is trying to return something,

it could go to the next shopper who wants it,

they could do what I call a "green turn"?

Consumers could use an app to take pictures of the item

and verify the condition while returning it.

Artificial intelligence systems could then sort these clothes by condition --

and direct it to the next appropriate person.

Mint-conditioned clothes could automatically go to the next buyer,

while slightly used clothes could be marked down

The retailer can decide the business rules

on the number of times a particular item can be resold.

All that the consumer would need to do is obtain a mobile code,

take it to the nearest shipping place to be packed and shipped,

and off it goes from one buyer to the next,

"Would people really go through all this trouble?"

I think they would if they had incentives,

There would be a whole new opportunity to make money

from this new customer base looking to buy these returns.

This system would make a fun thing like shopping

and would probably take six months to weave some of our existing systems

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Aparna Mehta: Where do your online returns go? (Where do your online returns go? | Aparna Mehta)

recommend

slightly

experience

applause