BARCODING, PACKAGING & LABELLING FEATURE How label printers can help recapture value in reverse logistics


The growth of ecommerce looks set to continue in the coming decades, but some retailers are struggling to capitalise on it fully as the colossal expense of increasing returns is hitting bottom lines. Jörk Schüßler, marketing director EMEA for Citizen Systems Europe, explains how the process of reverse logistics can be made more efficient with the right barcode and label printing technology


E


commerce is now the fastest growing retail market in Europe and North


America, and there are no signs of it slowing down. In fact, the world’s largest ecommerce markets – the US, China, UK and Germany – are expected to have doubled in size between 2015 and 2018, collectively growing to £645 billion by 2018. Meanwhile, global online retail sales are expected to hit almost $4.1 trillion in 2020, representing 14.6 per cent of all retail spending that year.


THE MOBILE SHOPPER Much of this growth is being driven by the increasing power of mobile technologies. Shopping on smartphones is forecast to treble in value in the coming years, with experts suggesting that £57 billion of all online retail in the UK alone will involve a smart device by 2020. Another study showed that 34 per cent of shoppers worldwide said they expect their mobile phone to become their main tool through which to purchase goods in the near future. This shift in purchasing habits is


allowing consumers to have a greater degree of control over how, when and where they spend their money. Central to this shopper autonomy is the freedom to also return items that have been bought online, as is evidenced by the high volume of goods that end up going back through the supply chain. At least 30 per cent of all products ordered online worldwide are returned, compared with only 8.89 per cent of goods bought in bricks and mortar shops.


This can, however, have a negative


impact on profits and the rising cost of returns has been dubbed as a “ticking time bomb” by some industry leaders as the annual worldwide losses figure of returns sat at $642.6 billion in 2015. As a result, it is vital that businesses look at ways to cut the cost of returns so it is possible to recapture most of the value of the stock that comes back.


SIMPLIFY THE RETURNS PROCESS Passing the cost of reverse logistics onto consumers is a bad move; this would further hit businesses through weakened customer loyalty as shoppers value free and simple returns exceptionally highly. For instance, 60 per cent of consumers said they would not purchase clothing through an online retailer if it did not offer free returns. Instead, firms must look at boosting


Jörk Schüßler, of Citizen Systems Europe, says using the latest printer technology will help to make companies’ reverse logistics


operations more efficient


efficiency to recoup some of the losses associated with returns. One of the simplest and most cost effective ways of ensuring the successful movement of goods through the supply chain is using specially developed barcode and label printing technology that can improve the way in which returns are executed. For example, the use of packaging that is designed for returns and the inclusion of pre-printed, ‘scannable’ adhesive labels (with barcodes that store all the information needed to process the return) make the job especially quick and simple. The customer places the label onto the outside of the packaging before posting so it can be scanned when it


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arrives back at the warehouse to bring up the details needed to seamlessly and rapidly complete the return.


DURABILITY IS KEY Clearly printed labels and, thus, high quality, industrial printers, are critical elements in this method as poor reproduction can result in time being wasted to find the correct information. Equally, they must be designed to withstand the demands of high volume outputs and the sometimes-challenging warehouse environment to ensure they provide reliability over long service lives. Systems such as the CL-S521, CL-S621 and CL-S631, from Citizen Systems Europe, have been precision engineered for this type of application and offer high performance 300dpi printing at 150mm per second. These compact yet robust devices also feature all-metal mechanisms and require minimal maintenance so they keep on going even during extremely busy periods. Although soaring online sales is excellent news for retailers at first glance, the importance of a strategy that optimises logistics processes to cut the crippling cost of returns cannot be underestimated. By using the latest printer technology to enhance the efficiency of reverse logistics operations, retailers can capitalise on the advantages being presented to them in this digital age for long-term success.


Citizen Systems Europe www.citizen-systems.com


FACTORY EQUIPMENT | JULY/AUGUST 2017 19


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