Black Friday might be dead, but buyer’s remorse is alive and well

According to one TheStreet writer: 2017 will be forever known as the year Black Friday died (in stores made of bricks, that is). A little dramatic sure, but the online numbers speak for themselves. Maybe it was the tryptophan or the endless football games or the fear of missing out on the last of the pumpkin pie? Whatever the reason, most of us opted to hop on our laptops (or phones) instead of hitting the mall for gifts and goodies. Some quick stats:

• Thanksgiving online sales hit a record-breaking $2.87 billion
• 40% of Black Friday online purchases were made on a mobile phone
• Cyber Monday was the largest U.S. online shopping day in HISTORY
• Free shipping & no hassle returns ruled the web

This wouldn’t be a B-Stock blog if we didn’t talk about how the incredible surge of e-commerce (and m-commerce) sales will drive an insane amount of returns. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday returns account for 13% of sales (that includes brick and mortar and online). By the time the holidays are over around $80 billion worth of merchandise will be returned—that’s around a quarter of total annual returns. Though much of it will be in functionally and cosmetically perfect condition, it won’t be put back on store or virtual shelves due to the high cost of restocking or rerouting individual items. For example, it can cost double the amount to process an online return back-on-shelf as it does to sell it.

The silver lining? A proper liquidation solution – like the one offered by B-Stock – can offset tremendous loss and mean the difference between winning and losing (post holiday and all year round). Nine of the top 10 U.S. retailers, along with hundreds of others, are using B-Stock’s award-winning, technology-based, and data-driven solutions to achieve a 30-80% higher recovery rate for their returned and excess inventory. This includes B2B and B2C Enterprise Solutions for large organizations and our SMB Solution: B-Stock Supply.

For more information on the clients we serve, please visit our Marketplaces page. If you’re interested in learning more about how B-Stock can build a customized solution for returned, overstock or excess inventory – post holiday and all year round – please contact us.