According to national postal service Royal Mail, today (4th January) is expected to be the busiest day for online returns as people return unwanted Christmas presents and goods bought during the January Sales. Royal Mail has dubbed today, Mail-back Monday due to the projected spike in demand for returned items that were bought from e-tailers.

A statement from Royal Mail said, “On Monday 4 January online returns are predicted to jump by more than 50% in a single day, versus the average number of return parcels per day in December.” This spike in demand is set to come from the growing e-commerce industry as people return goods after the festive period.

According to Royal Mail Parcels MD Nick Landon said, “Monday is set to be a huge day for mailing back unwanted Christmas gifts and online purchases. We expect the volume of return parcels to jump by more than 50%. More and more shoppers are using the post to return their unwanted online purchases. At this time of year the easiest way for many shoppers to return their items is to pop them in the mail rather than tackle the post-Christmas queues.”

These figures are based on projections by companies using Royal Mail’s Tracked Returns service, of which it has over 500 clients nationwide. During the festive period, the Tracked Returns system saw an increase of 41% in volumes as customers returned unwanted goods to Royal Mail’s clients.

A smooth customer returns service is well understood to be as critical for the customer experience as the delivery process in the first place. Royal Mail’s Tracked Returns service enables businesses to improve their returns operations by subscribing to this service. Companies will be very busy handing returns now, after a brief pause as January Sales came to a close, and now the unwanted goods are returned to e-tailers.