Apparel and footwear return more than almost any other category. Fit is uncertain until the parcel is opened, and generous return policies are part of how the category sells. That is the business. The inventory problem comes from what happens after.
Three things that make apparel different
Variant depth. A single style might be twelve sizes across four colours. Each variant has its own count. A returned medium in navy that gets restocked as a medium in black is two errors, not one, and neither shows up as an obvious mistake.
Timing. Refunds are often issued when the customer confirms the item is on its way back, to keep them happy. The parcel arrives days later, handled by someone else. The person who ticked, or did not tick, Restock never sees the garment.
Volume. With returns running at a meaningful fraction of orders, small per-return error rates become real numbers. If one refund in fifteen is processed without a restock, a store doing 300 refunds a quarter has 20 units drifting out of the count every three months.
Where the units end up
Usually on a rail or in a bin in the stockroom, physically fine, waiting to be put away, and invisible to the storefront. Because the admin shows zero, the store may even reorder the same variant from the supplier.
Habits that help
- Receive the return before, or at the same time as, issuing the refund, so the restock decision is made by the person holding the garment.
- Restock to the location the item is actually at, not a default.
- Treat a return that has been open longer than your policy window as something to close this week.
- Once a month, price the refunds that were not restocked. The number will tell you whether the habit is holding.
The quarter that looks clean
Even a store with a good process sees the number rise when someone new starts handling returns. The person who forgets the checkbox changes every few months. That is why the check is worth running continuously rather than once.
StockReclaim was built for stores like this: sub-million-dollar apparel and footwear brands, single or multi-location. Read about the four exceptions it finds.