The holiday season may be over, but logistics professionals are still in the thick of it, dealing with a wave of returns that has grown so much in recent years that many in the industry are referring to the January returns season as a “second peak.” Coming on the heels of peak shipping season, that wave of returns is keeping warehouses nationwide buzzing with activity.Technology is here to help with that. High-tech solutions are finding their way into all aspects of the supply chain, and reverse logistics is no exception. More companies are turning to robotic solutions and advanced software to help them manage an avalanche of returns—which the National Retail Federation (NRF) projected would add up to nearly $850 billion in 2025.“[January is] absolutely a second peak,” says Kait Peterson, vice president and head of marketing at autonomous mobile robot (AMR) developer Locus Robotics. “Many people don’t know that we handle a lot of putaway and returns with our robots, in addition to picking.“When we see an increase in peak season, we see an increase in returns. And we’re expecting this year’s peak season to set new records for units processed [throughout] our network.”As of late November, Locus Robotics had delivered 3,000 peak-season robots to customers, under its robots-as-a-service (RaaS) model, to help them scale up and manage this year’s volume. Those robots are typically kept through the end of January to assist with returns-related activity, according to Peterson.Other tech-based products are helping to stem the tide of returns,…
