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Delivery of parcels: On average, every fourth parcel is returned, say economists from Bamberg
Photo: Michael Gstettenbauer / IMAGO
Last year, people in Germany ordered goods worth 99 billion euros on the Internet - and sent back every fourth package ordered, either completely or with part of the goods.
Economists from the University of Bamberg determined this.
An estimated 530 million packages with 1.3 billion items were returned to retailers.
This means that Germany is the “European Returns Champion”, the researchers announced on Wednesday.
One of the reasons: In Germany, returns are usually free of charge.
Only one in ten German online retailers ask for fees or cost sharing, compared to every second in other European countries, said the head of the returns management research group, Björn Asdecker.
A second reason is the generous return periods: On average, retailers in Germany allow significantly more time than in the rest of the EU to return an item.
And finally, the Germans also order a lot more on account than the other Europeans.
This makes a return easier than with delivery by cash on delivery, direct debit or prepayment.
Of the 1.3 billion items returned, 91 percent are clothing or shoes.
"The average transport and processing costs per return shipment are EUR 6.95," said Asdecker.
Small traders would have significantly higher costs per case than large ones.
Dealers are good at processing returns
According to the evaluation, only one percent of the returned items end up in the garbage via the retailer.
More than 93 percent could be sold directly as new.
The rest is offered as second-hand goods, sold to industrial users or donated.
This SPIEGEL video provides an insight into how returns are handled in Germany:
»German e-commerce retailers are particularly good at processing their returns.
The proportion of waste disposal is lower in Germany than in the rest of Europe,” said Asdecker.
The costs per return are lower than with the competition.
»This results in a competitive advantage for German e-commerce.«
In any case, the returns put a strain on the climate.
According to the research group, “An estimated 795,000 tons of CO₂ are caused by returns in Germany in 2021” – that’s about as much as 6.6 million cars emit on the journey from Munich to Hamburg.
However, the industry does not care that much about its ecological footprint when it comes to this topic, as the survey shows: »Less than five percent stated that their company measures the CO₂ footprint of returns.«
Data from multiple sources
For the study, the experts interviewed 411 managers of European retailers with a total online turnover of around 60 billion euros and evaluated data from the associations for e-commerce, mail order, parcel services and express logistics.
"The return of goods is part of consumer protection and is part of well-established processes in online and mail order business," said the deputy general manager of the Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order, Martin Groß-Albenhausen.
"Research on the reasons for returns, scope, avoidability and utilization of returns, but also on specific returns behavior, is all the more important."
For the fall, the association announced a returns compendium with study results from Asdecker, Darmstadt Professor Bernd Jörs, the EHI Retail Institute and others.
