Consumers Expected to Return Nearly $850 Billion in Merchandise in 2025
The National Retail Federation, in a 15 October 2025 release on its 2025 Retail Returns Landscape study with Happy Returns, reported that 358 ecommerce professionals at US merchants above $500 million in revenue put 2025 returns at 15.8% of annual sales, or $849.9 billion, rising to an estimated 19.3% on online sales. Both surveys ran in summer 2025, the consumer half covering 2,006 people who had made an online return. Among those merchants, 64% call updating returns a priority within six months, and fraud accounts for 9% of all returns. Higher processing costs and higher carrier shipping costs, each named by 40% of merchants, are why retailers charge for returns. Free returns weigh on the purchase decision for 82% of those consumers, up from 76% a year earlier. Holiday returns are put at 17% of holiday sales.
- $849.9B Returns Value, 2025
- 19.3% Of Online Sales Returned
- 9% Of Returns Are Fraudulent
A raw return rate tells an operation how much is coming back and nothing about whether that volume is normal for what was sold. The figures underneath matter more to a last mile operation than the headline does: fraud at nearly one return in eleven puts verification into the reverse flow rather than the back office, and the retailer response named in the study, more third party logistics, seasonal hiring and longer windows, is a capacity decision taken before peak rather than during it.