Robots help a Santa Clarita company with retail return costs

Nearly 17 percent of retail goods purchased in the United States were returned last year -- that's $890 billion in merchandise according to the National Retail Federation.

One Santa Clarita company, Happy Returns, is working to save retailers money with those "free" returns in a high-tech way, with robots.

The retail federation found that more than half of consumers consider a retailer's return policy before shopping – and most want easy and free returns. Tim Fehr, Happy Returns COO, said robots are part of the innovative, technological solution at a time when analysts expect shipping costs to rise due to tariffs.

Fehr said they deal with a few hundred different merchants including Gap, Windsor, All Birds and Revolve. When consumers have a return with one of their participating retailers, they can take it to one of the 9,000 drop-off points nationwide – inside Staples, UPS stores, and Ulta.

Shoppers then get an immediate credit, and their return makes its way to the Happy Returns warehouse.

"We now process most returns the same day we get it, generally within a couple of hours of the trucks arriving from UPS," Fehr said.

While humans still have a part in the process, robots add a level of speed and efficiency. Employees still take the returns off the trucks and scan them into the system, robots do the rest, directed by QR codes.

"When things get hard, we need to get better. The robots are a significant step forward in productivity and efficiency," Fehr said.

"As we enter a more uncertain climate, merchants will need to look at every crevice to find opportunities to optimize."