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Samudrapikiran – Consumers benefit from the expansion of internet commerce because they no longer have to visit local retail outlets to explore, choose, and purchase the things they want to buy; instead, they have the entire world at their fingertips, presenting a bewildering multitude of options. Furthermore, businesses operating in this highly competitive climate are continually innovating to keep ahead of the competition; alternatives such as next day delivery, which was formerly considered a luxury service, are now considered the norm.
Moreover, while return fraud is sometimes overlooked in favour of more typical or blatant kinds of theft like shoplifting or organised retail crime, it may gradually drain away income for companies. While the RFID full form or rfid stands for Radio-Frequency IDentification. Also, return rates are increasing as online shopping becomes more popular since shoppers aren’t trying on products or seeing them in person before making a purchase choice.
The amount of things returned from online sales is usually doubled. This implies that having a quick, yet safe, return mechanism in place will become increasingly vital in creating profit for merchants. Furthermore, AWL India is one of the leading logistics and warehousing providers in the country that provides the latest RFID technology that can streamline your supply chain operations while simultaneously improving their efficiency.
Rising Return Frauds
However, before we understand how RFID is capable of putting a restraint on return frauds, it is essential to understand How widespread is the problem of return fraud? In addition to the expenses of processing returns (such as shipping, storage, and order processing), there is the possibility of additional losses owing to returns system abuse.
Return fraud is a rising problem, costing merchants an estimated $27 Billion per year. In-store returns provide the greatest risk for internet returns. BORIS (buy-online-return-in-store) return fraud, for example, totals $1.6 billion vs $0.4 billion for non-store locations. RFID tags are used to lower the rising return frauds.
Furthermore, there is one area where internet commerce falls short of traditional stores in the purchasing of apparel and footwear. In a physical store, product fitting, personal style, and comfort are easier to resolve ahead of purchase than they are on a website. This has inevitably resulted in a huge increase in the number of things returned to merchants by online buyers – techniques such as perhaps purchasing three different sizes of the same item with the goal of returning those that do not ‘fit’ are frequent. For certain shops, this has become a serious concern; return rates of 40-70% are not uncommon in particular industries, causing tremendous logistical and expense issues.
Unmasking Thieves
One of the most challenging components of combating return fraud is distinguishing between real returns and those misusing the return system. This can be challenging in a market that is increasingly focused on regular and hassle-free returns. With RFID enabled technological systems it is now possible to make one-click returns with quick collection and drop-off the norm. One of the most challenging components of combating return fraud is distinguishing between real returns and those misusing the return system. This can be challenging in a market that is increasingly focused on regular and hassle-free returns. Most stores now accept ‘no questions asked’ returns.
How RFID Can Help?
Accepting returns might be difficult if the consumer has adequate evidence of purchase. RFID labels provide a safe and easy alternative to traditional return procedures by putting the burden of proof on the RFID label connected to the item rather than a receipt or the consumer. With a unique RFID number for each single item, rather than simply each category of item, you can now determine whether a specific item being returned was stolen from another business or was initially sold at a discount.
The use of RFID in warehouse by integrating your point-of-sale data with RFID data allows you to observe an item’s whole history: it was transported to the shop, refilled on the sales floor, and finally sold to a consumer. Or, in the instance of stolen item returns, never sold in the first place. Return fraud may thus be eliminated with the use of RFID technology.
Conclusion
Furthermore, the sheer number of online sales and the expanding practice of fulfilling those orders from an existing network of stores can cause process challenges, including incorrect products being shipped to customers, which can result in returns and additional expenditures. Another issue that businesses confront is fraudsters taking advantage of their return procedure through refund fraud.
To effectively commit their crime, perpetrators generally rely on a major uncertainty – a retailer’s inability to determine if an item given for refund was actually purchased in the first place. In many ways, refund fraud is one of the simplest methods to conduct retail crime: really purchase an item and obtain a receipt, return to the store, and grab another item off the shelf that matches the description on the receipt and submit it for a refund.
Moreover, AWL India is one of the leading logistics companies in India that provides RFID solutions to put a restraint on return frauds. Store employees will give a refund if they believe the goods are the same as specified on the receipt. The original merchandise is subsequently given to the thief for free. The basic problem is that the SKU identifier does not uniquely identify each specific product, but rather provides a description of what the product is in order to conduct a price lookup and trigger inventory adjustments. The ECR research on how retailers are experimenting in their usage of RFID provided light on how the technology may help them better handle some of these refund concerns. There were three major points that were discovered.
Author : AWL India
