How to Deal with Increasing Returns in E-Commerce Operations

April 19, 2018 11:30 am

As e-commerce has become a popular way to buy things, entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on this boom are popping up all over the place. What many that get started with e-commerce fail to take into account is that once you start picking up steam and making a lot of sales, you’ll start seeing a lot of returns as well.

Many small business owners are unaware and unprepared for the perils that returns can bring to the table. In order to be able to deal with this issue properly, ecommerce store owners will need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

While dealing with return policies and how to issue refunds and get items shipped back to you is first and foremost, the biggest issue with returns comes down to one thing: storage. All those items need to be mailed back to somewhere, and they need to be stored just the same as anything else.

How can you utilize steel shelving systems for returns?
One of the best options for items like returns is to store them out of the way of the rest of your operations. The last thing you want is your returns to start getting mixed up with new product ready to go out. This will only increase costs and cause issues in the future. By using commercial steel shelving, like storage mezzanine platforms and other steel shelving systems, you can save valuable space for the products you’re trying to get out, instead of wasting it on a pile of returned items.

This will also allow you to keep everything organized, so you can get a good picture of what may be being returned the most and make adjustments to your product offerings accordingly.

Steel shelving systems also have the added bonus of being able to hold a large amount of weight, this means you can stay focused on keeping your business alive instead of where to put your returned items. The more these commercial steel shelving solutions can handle, the less you have to worry about incoming returned products getting in the way. Storage mezzanine platforms also do a great job at accomplishing this task, once again taking generally unimportant items and keeping them well out of the way of your crucial day to day operations.

If you are finding yourself in a situation where your e-commerce efforts are finally starting to kick off, don’t celebrate yet. Instead, get ready for the oncoming storm by outfitting your warehouse with the proper steel shelving to handle anything that may come your way. When it comes to e-commerce, this will most likely be the increased amount of returns you’ll experience, as people who shop online are much more likely to return items.

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