‘Serial returners’: How Covid and free shipping made over-buying the new norm

Managing a huge amount of packages, owner of Sip and Ship Diana Naramore tidies a stack of boxes in the back. With the recent holiday there has been a surge in holiday gift returns. — Seattle Times/TNS

Last week, customers at the UPS Store in Seattle’s Interbay neighbourhood got a pretty good demonstration of what the global supply chain looks like when you try to run it backward.

The first Monday of the year marks the traditional start of the holiday return season, which this year is expected to break records for returned purchases – and by late afternoon, the line of box-bearing UPS customers snaked nearly out the door.