Consumers Urged to Consider: Where Will Your Black Friday Returns End Up?

November is expected to beat Christmas as the peak of Australian retail sales again this year - despite rising interest rates and the cost-of-Living crunch - with Black Friday here.

But more than 55 million pieces of new clothing bought online in Australia every year are being sent to Landfill, TMX Transform analysis found earlier this year. And today's day of discounts, which is expected to break records, will see Australian consumers spend an estimated $6.36 billion on retail items, according to the Australian Retailers Association (ARA).

The "remote fitting room" phenomenon refers to consumers bulk-buying garments in different sizes, then returning those that are ill-fitting - with many going to waste. Australians buy on average 56 items of clothing each per year, or about 1.1 billion in total. Of these, about 350 million are purchased online. Retail spending both in-store and online rose 2.0 per cent year-on-year in September.

But up to two-thirds of these online returns go into landfill, as retailers are unable to repackage the goods and process them back into the supply chain for repurchase.

"We already know how established the remote fitting room phenomenon is," TMX Transform's Director of Supply Chain, Jamie Dixon, said.

"E-commerce, social media, ease of purchase, free returns, and other variables all influence fashion and apparel spending and returns behaviour by younger people - who ironically are also the most critical of environmental waste."

"Retailers work hard to provide options, flexibility, and exceptional service to their customers - but they are also working to ease the pressure of reverse logistics on their supply chain."

Reverse logistics can decrease waste, optimise fulfilment orders, improve delivery management, and efficiently process returned garments, while maintaining customer experience. 

"Retailers can do a lot to manage the returns burden - for example, minimising split and multiple orders from the same retailer to a single customer," Mr. Dixon said.

Black Friday began as an in-store phenomenon, but with the rise of e-commerce, the frenzy is now online.