Right now, in October, somebody is buying a jacket they’re going to send back.
They don’t know it yet. But a meaningful share of everything that sells between now and December 25th is coming back — in January, all at once, in boxes, to a building that has to do something with it.
The industry talks about returns as a rate. A percentage in a forecast.
On a warehouse floor, a return isn’t a percentage. It’s a garment that’s been worn once, folded badly, shipped back without its hangtag, maybe with a stain on the cuff, maybe a lot of cat hair, maybe with the polybag missing.
In January they come back by the truckload, and every single one needs a decision made about it.
That’s the part people underestimate. The work isn’t moving boxes. It’s making a judgment on every unit — sellable as-is, needs cleaning, needs a repair, or finished.
The volume is coming either way. The only real question is what happens when it lands, and there are two outcomes.
It goes back into inventory and sells again at or near full price. Or it goes to a liquidator for pennies, because nobody had the capacity to restore it in time.
What decides which one happens is almost never the condition of the product. Most of what comes back is fine, or close to it. What decides it is whether somebody is set up to inspect, clean, repair, re-tag and repack it fast enough to matter.
And that capacity gets arranged in the fall. Not in January.
We’ve processed over half a million units in a single season for one customer. That didn’t happen because somebody called on January 8th. It happened because the plan existed in October.
A returned garment is the only inventory you’ve paid for twice — once to make it, once to get it back. Writing it off is the third payment. Restoring it is usually cheaper than any of them.
If January is going to be a problem, now is when it stops being one.
“Your Problem Is Our Business”
