Tech makes returns welcome
January 1st 2011 With the right solution in place, a retailer can turn potential losses from a return into
gains, says Mark Hewitt, CEO of iForce
For the last six years Tesco has received a visible and
auditable returns processing service from iForce that
swiftly removes returned products from its stores and
processes them for its onward disposition.
When a return is brought to the customer service desk in a
Tesco store, the till system feeds the data directly into iForce's inhouse
developed returns management software, called ReSCU,
fully integrated with Tesco. The product is scanned and
documented and given a code according to the reason for its
return. Human intervention is required to validate this but from
then on it's an automatic process.
ReSCU provides a series of prompts to manage the return and
then carries out operational assessments and load planning for
the items being sent to the returns centre for processing, which
gives the centre advanced warning, allowing it to be ready to
deploy the resources required to deal with the profile of returned
goods arriving.
iForce pre-programs ReSCU with rules regarding the correct
disposition for each of its customers and all of their items. It is
vital to agree with the retailer on how to deal with specific items
and circumstances. The item might be returned to stock,
repackaged, refurbished or scrapped. The route back to market
could see it being restored to the original supplier, auctioned using
iForce's own BuyForce site, sold to jobbers or fed back into the
retail stream where revenue can be maximised, given that 25% of
margin can be lost by selling through intermediaries. In 60% of
cases when returned products are inspected, no fault is found. In
many cases the only problem is with the packaging. Keeping
returned packaging that is in good condition when the product
inside is not, helps build up a stock of packing. Furthermore,
many manufacturers will over order their packaging by a few
percent to ensure they have spare stocks, which can be used to
bring back returns to 'as new' standard. It is therefore possible to
restore significant quantities of goods to the original supply chain,
or at least to the supplier, often
gaining high residual value. More articles from iForce Limited: | 
