Case Study: Major Chain of Department Stores achieves $18 savings per returned item with Narvar

Department Store Saves $18 Per Returned Item With Narvar’s Return To Vendor (RTV) Functionality

Major Chain Of Department Stores, a retailer with more than $2B in annual revenue and a complex luxury-goods supply chain, was struggling with costly and inefficient returns handling. Its existing process routed returned items through distribution centers before sending them back to vendors, driving up shipping costs, slowing resale, and making reconciliation difficult. The chain turned to Narvar, its long-time returns partner, to streamline return-to-vendor operations.

Narvar implemented intelligent return routing, multi-label return shipping, and return-to-vendor (RTV) functionality so items could be sent directly to vendor warehouses and billed to the correct shipping account. The results were significant: the retailer saved an average of $18 per returned vendor item and reduced operations labor by 20 days in the first six months, or about 3.33 days per month. Narvar also helped reduce fraud risk by enabling vendor associates to inspect returned luxury goods directly.