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Keep returning stuff for free, and ultimately it will cost us all a lot
Marketplace Tech
English - January 07, 2020 11:30 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsTechnology Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: CES 2020: Let’s see how tech envisions the new decade
This season’s online holiday sales were worth some $138 billion to e-retailers, and nearly a third of that stuff is expected to be returned, according to new research from CBRE, a real estate research group. That’s actually typical for 30% of online shopping to be returned, whereas 8% of other stuff bought in shops is returned. All of those returns come with a cost, even if they’re free to us, the shoppers. There’s the emissions from the trucks and planes, the waste from packaging and discarded products, the cost of finding space for it all, or even just chucking it out.