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When the black, $128.95 Vince Camuto summer sandals size 6, with a 2-inch cork heel turned out to be too big, Sherri Theodore decided to return them to Nordstrom’s online, where she had bought them a few weeks before.
“They just weren’t right for me,” said Theodore, 61, a retired bookkeeper from Ardmore. She reboxed the shoes and drove to the nearby Bala Cynwyd Shopping Center to mail them back at a UPS store there.
Where do rejected items bought online or at a brick-and-mortar store end up when returned? Is there a special return heaven in cyberspace? In retail parlance, it’s called reverse logistics.
Today’s consumer purchases happen more rapidly than ever, making returns an unavoidable aspect of the shopping experience. Every year, billions of dollars worth of returned goods make their way back to retailers, often resulting in excess inventory. Many of these…