IPC’s Common Returns Platform reaches 2m returned items

The International Post Corporation (IPC) has announced that its Common Return Platform reached 2m returned items at the end of the third quarter 2015. “The returns solution has been a great success and is gaining ever more traction worldwide: in September 2015, over 215,000 labels were created – on par with the yearly average for the first four years of the solution,” said IPC.

“Moreover, the number of items returned during first three quarters of 2015 (891,278) almost equalled the number of items returned during the previous four years (1,109,245).”

IPC created the IPC Easy Return Solution in partnership with five European posts in 2010. The solution has since evolved to support several international mail networks – EPG, KPG, PRIME, INTERCONNECT and UPU parcels – under the IPC Common Return Platform (CRP), which was launched two years ago.

The Common Return Platform provides a return service enabling postal operators to collaborate on returning cross-border parcels to e-retailers.

“In simple terms,” explained IPC, “it allows e-customers in country A to return goods to e-sellers in country B. The service allows authorised returns to be accepted at postal counters without payment, and then returned through the postal network to the e-seller which authorised the return.”

The e-seller provides the e-customer with a postage-paid return label. The e-customer  then drops the unwanted purchase at a post office or indicated facility together with the dedicated label provided by the e-seller attached to the parcel. The labels are generated by IPC in a direct interface with authorising posts using the Common Return Platform.

About half of the labels created by the platform end up in a real item being returned, as some e-sellers include return labels together with the original shipment just in case their customers want to make a return.

The service has grown from the five original participating posts (bpost, Deutsche Post DHL, Le Groupe La Poste, Royal Mail Group and PostNL) to encompass ten authorising posts and around 30 accepting posts in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

“The success of the solution is no surprise,” claimed IPC, “as research shows that having an easy returns solution is one of the key requirements for consumers making cross-border online purchases.”