New research reveals, while the e-commerce market appears to be thriving, online retailers face significant annual losses as a result of increasing product returns.
A new study from Stockshifters.com revealed that, while the internet retail sector is expected to be worth more than £42.7bn this year, e-commerce traders could face losses upwards of £9.4bn due to the growing number of returns.

Refunds go with the territory in retail, with high street retailers expecting an average returns rate of 10%. However, the research, published in the Retail Bulletin, found that online shoppers return an average of 22% of items purchased.

As the online market continues to grow year on year, with sales up a massive 60% over the Easter period, losses from online returns could surpass £10.5bn by the end of next year.

Stockshifters - a trade marketplace for unwanted or returned stock - explained that many retailers are unprepared to deal with the mountain of returned goods and have no provision in place to generate revenue from the 'secondary stock'.

According to the research, the top five categories for online shoppers to make returns were

1) Clothing (34%)
2) Books, music or films (15%)
3) Electronic equipment (9%)
4) Computing equipment (5%)
5) Home and garden furnishing (3%)