Online shopping is growing rapidly, but the returns experience has not kept up, making it a major pain point in the customer journey, with more than half of shoppers reporting that current return processes do not meet their needs. Our 2026 post & parcel trend report highlights a clear shift in consumer preference, with shoppers signalling a desire to move away from portals and apps towards simpler, familiar channels like WhatsApp to manage returns with greater ease and control.
The research we gathered for this report is based on a quantitative survey of 1,557 consumers conducted in Q4 2025 across the USA and UK. This report makes it clear that the retail and logistics industry need to simplify the returns journey instead of remaining stuck in the past with fragmented processes that require consumers to navigate a maze of portals, apps, labels, and rules.
New Consumer Insights: Key Trends in Returns Behaviour
The report found that 3 in 4 consumers say returns processes vary too much from retailer to retailer. When the returns process is complicated and fragmented, it does not just frustrate customers, it also harms retailers. In fact, 75% of shoppers in the US and 62% in the UK say they have stopped buying from a retailer because the returns experience was too frustrating. Customers make it clear in this report that the returns experience influences where they choose to shop, meaning retailers need to treat returns as a core part of their strategy or risk losing sales.
Consumers dissatisfaction with fragmented and complex returns is a key theme in this report and this issue is compounded by app fatigue. With 81% of US consumers and 71% of UK consumers reporting that they do not like downloading apps for one-off tasks like returns. This creates friction at a critical point in the journey, leading to abandoned returns. It highlights the need for a simpler, single place where consumers can manage returns, track progress, and receive updates without switching between multiple platforms.
The Future of Returns
Our report shows that, for the first time, messaging apps have overtaken retailer apps and email as the preferred way to manage returns. Consumers are not just open to this shift, they prefer it, with 77% saying they would consider managing all returns through WhatsApp instead of apps, emails, or websites. Messaging is already part of everyday life, making this a natural next step. The question is no longer if this shift will happen, but how quickly organisations will adapt.
Read the full trend report here!
