News Room

Bottom Line: This year's hard reset is amplifying how vital customer relationships are and how much potential AI has to find new ways to improve them.

Because customers who shop online cannot try on their purchases, a third of all Internet sales get returned. But handling these returns is costly, giving retailers that have both physical stores and digital sales a clear advantage over retailers that operate only online. A new study examined the decisions around the pricing and return policies of a retailer with both stores and online sales to help explain why some firms opt to fully refund customers for their returns while others charge a fee for online returns. The findings offer guidance to retailers about pricing and policies on returns and refunds.

“My C-Level execs need to hear this!” Such was one shipper’s response I received after publishing a recent Two Minute Warning about how too many executives take their supply chains for granted. Candidly, I know that this is a challenging message for C-Level executives to hear, because over the years I’ve received several calls and had conversations with presidents and CEOs who have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of their supply chain.

Global supply chains have seen significant disruption from the spread of COVID-19. For crop protection, it has interrupted production along the entire crop input value chain — from raw materials to manufacturing to packaging to distribution to transportation.

At a school known for the strength of its supply chain and operations management faculty, Saurabh Bansal is considered a superstar. The 39-year-old Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management and Operations Research made this year’s Best 40 Under 40 Professors list both for his strength and pipeline in research and publishing as well as the nearly-dozen strong reviews from colleagues and students.