Brits are expected to return their unwanted and ill-fitting Christmas presents this week, with £ 1.41 billion worth of items expected to be returned to retailers following the festive season, according to ParcelHero.
In addition, Royal Mail stated that as more customers choose to return things on the first working day of the year, 2nd January 2024, often known as “take back Tuesday,” would experience a 52 percent increase in online purchase returns compared to the average number of return parcels received daily in December.
While ParcelHero acknowledged that post-Christmas returns on the first working day of the year were down by about 6 per cent from the same day in 2023, it pointed out that this little decline was probably more the result of lower Christmas expenditure than of shifting consumer behaviour.
David Jinks, head of consumer research at ParcelHero, said, “We’ve looked at our own returns volumes and spoken to people in the courier and retail industries and it looks like there was a small but distinct drop in the volume and value of returns on “Takeback Tuesday” yesterday, compared to record returns last year.”
A recent industry report from ParcelHero revealed that returns cost UK retailers over £ 60 billion annually, with the post-Christmas season accounting for “a large chunk of these” refunds. Approximately 47 per cent of all ParcelHero shipments were labelled as “returns” during the initial week of the previous year.
