And finally…Black Friday returned internet goods to top £1 billion mark

However, according to industry predictions, £1 billion of the products purchased online in the UK will be returned by shoppers, tying stock up for around three to four weeks in the supply chain returns loop, with goods not being back on sale at full price in time for the Christmas shopping rush.

On any one day there is £978 million worth of ecommerce stock tied up in the returns cycle and this ‘stock on loan’ to customers will cost retailers £245 million this Christmas in refunds, cost of returns and goods being out of stock.

Recent research from Barclaycard highlighted the scale of the problem for retailers with “retailers are struggling to cope with the volume of refund requests they feel obliged to grant, despite items being unfit for resale”.

Customer returns are currently costing the retail industry around £70 billion each year, £25.5 billion of which is being generated purely by ecommerce returns.

The most common reasons for returned items, as identified by retail data intelligence specialists, Clear Returns, include the product not being as expected from the online description and images; scarcity buying that leads to buy first and choose later behaviours; general quality and fit problems and buyer’s remorse.

In electronics, products are frequently returned and reported as faulty even though when tested back at the warehouse, less than one percent actually have any fault.

In addition, over the Black Friday weekend, £800 million of returns will be caused by just 20 per cent of shoppers, who buy first then select at home and return the excess items ordered.