At WWD’s annual Apparel & Retail CEO Summit, Anisa Kumar, chief executive officer of Narvar, took the audience through today’s global market shifts and evolving consumer behavior. The consumer journey, she said, is circular, not linear.
After more than 20 years of working in retail, Kumar joined Narvar to solve hard problems. Narvar, which focuses on everything post-purchase from shipping and tracking to returns, provides retailers with solutions that are cost-effective and consumer-centric. The intelligent platform has empowered its retail partners to deliver world-class post-purchase experiences that drive revenue, increase customer lifetime value and improve operational efficiencies.
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Kumar pointed to three key forces at play in today’s market. First, she said, ongoing economic variability with what’s happening in the global economy, inflation and wars “will stay with us for a while” and ultimately shape how retail will need to operate going forward. Second, while these economic factors are at an all-time high, consumer preferences are shifting. Gen Z and Generation Alpha, for example, shop much differently than older generations. Expectations are getting higher for convenience, optionality and digital solutions across multiple channels. Anything that puts friction into the customer journey needs to be eliminated.
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The third and last factor, she said, is rising fraud risks. According to Navar’s data, 52 percent of shoppers admit to having engaged in some form of return fraud in their lifetime.
Today, fraud can be committed anywhere from pre- to post-purchase. Videos on how to defraud brands and retailers have even popped up on TikTok and return fraud continues to grow. Post-purchase fraud takes on many different shapes including a consumer reporting a package as undelivered, which according to Narvar occurs 27 percent to 32 percent of the time. In the same vein, consumers will often tell a retailer that not all items were included in their delivery.
Return rates, reported at 18 percent in the U.S., can add up in terms of loss, especially when there is fraud. And with differing insights, Kumar said this occurrence is part of retail’s data paradox.
“Retailers, for the longest time, had access to a ton of data, and we are famous as an industry for lagging a little bit on the technology because we didn’t do enough with that data,” Kumar said. “Now we’re being told if we don’t analyze every piece of it, it’s going to be hard to run effectively and enhance.”
Looking at the data paradox, she said, retailers need to focus on what they need to build and what needs to be done with the data. If fraud on post-purchase is a vital part of what needs to be done with that data, Navar is there to empower a solution.
“This is the new frontier,” Kumar said. “This is also the frontier in which you have tons of consumer data. We’ve got to use that. We’ve got to use that to stop fraud, but we’ve also got to use that to optimize that journey and bring them back.”
With an understanding that the consumer journey is a circle, she said, Navar is right in the middle of the circle with the retailer, solving hard problems and looking forward to a future that is both adaptive and innovative — a future that is not just about surviving.