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Retail Clothing Returns: A Review of Key Issues

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Abstract

Global online shopping has been increasing over the past decade, as new shopping formats, technology and consumer behaviour continuously interact. Return rates in this sector range from around 20–60% depending on specific product characteristics. There is very little literature (particularly of an academic nature) on either the logistics or the environmental consequences of the logistics associated with these returns. This paper addresses this gap by analysing reverse logistics in the clothing industry, the challenges it faces and its environmental consequences and suggests some policy implications.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks must go to Kevin Cullinane and Johan Hagberg for commenting on earlier drafts of the paper and to Energimyndighten, Sweden for funding the research.

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Correspondence to Yingli Wang .

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Cullinane, S., Browne, M., Karlsson, E., Wang, Y. (2019). Retail Clothing Returns: A Review of Key Issues. In: Wells, P. (eds) Contemporary Operations and Logistics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14493-7_16

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