2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry Report Campaign

About Project

Appriss Retail has established itself as a leading voice in the retail industry in the fight against rising returns fraud and abuse, which cost retailers $101 billion in 2023. As concerns around returns fraud and abuse grow, retailers are bolstering their efforts to mitigate the related bottom-line impacts.

Appriss Retail advocates for fraud prevention best practices that protect retailers’ bottom lines while maintaining positive experiences for the broadest swath of consumers possible. The company accomplishes this by using cutting-edge data science and AI to empower retailers with real-time insights that help tackle this industry problem.

Within this context, Appriss Retail noticed a gap in industry knowledge regarding fraudulent and abusive returns activities. The company’s annual Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry report was born out of a need to educate retailers and encourage them to shift their perspective on returns by quantifying the problem with accurate and actionable data.

Instead of seeing returns merely as a cost of doing business, Appriss Retail sought to help retailers and the industry at large quantify the problem, understand the key sources and tactics that contribute to it, and begin recouping the losses associated with returns fraud and abuse. Appriss Retail strives to ensure a healthy balance within the retail industry between encouraging positive consumer experiences and protecting the business interests of retailers.

The company published its first Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry report in 2017 in collaboration with the National Retail Federation. What began as a straightforward survey evolved over time into the annual industry benchmark it is today, published near the end of every calendar year since 2017. The report leverages the industry's largest pool of returns data amassed by Appriss Retail’s robust omnichannel intelligence platform, which is trusted by over 60 of the top 100 U.S. retailers and covers 40% of all U.S. transactions across over 150,000 locations.

The objective of the 2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry report was to establish Appriss Retail’s credibility as a go-to expert for prominent media publications like CNBC, Business Insider, NBC News, and Forbes while building the company’s reputation as the leading provider of solutions designed to help retailers reduce losses, decrease return and claim fraud and abuse, and create a frictionless consumer experience. Appriss Retail also wanted to underscore the fact that the data included in the report was comprised of accurate in-store and online transaction figures amassed from Appriss Retail’s platform.

Appriss Retail executed a strategic, well-timed and comprehensive demand generation campaign to promote the 2023 report. These efforts were designed to engage existing customers, prospective customers, media, and analysts across targeted media channels.

Leveraging Appriss Retail’s collaboration with the National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, was a cornerstone of this campaign. A deliberate launch date of December 26, 2023, was chosen to coincide perfectly with the start of the retail industry’s flagship tradeshow, NRF’s Big Show, each January.

Appriss Retail and it’s PR agency of record, Ketner Group Communications, also executed a comprehensive public relations campaign to drive awareness of the report and its findings. This included the creation and distribution of an attention-grabbing press release and undergoing a strategic outreach campaign to reach tier one media, retail trade, and key industry analysts.

Internal marketing tactics ran the gamut to ensure that all potential audience members were touched and supported the campaign’s objectives. Appriss Retail distributed targeted email campaigns, creating assets for internal stakeholders to use in conversations with customers and prospects. LinkedIn Conversation ads, sponsored LinkedIn posts, and Google ad campaigns were also leveraged to complement an organic social media strategy.

The report was featured prominently across the company’s website—from the homepage to its resource center—and secondary website blog content was created to provide reusable content and support SEO strategies.

Campaign messaging for the report focused on empowering retailers to take control of return-related losses, positioning the research as a resource that helps them understand the scope and impact of these issues. Appriss Retail’s marketing team strategically aligned messaging with Ketner Group to ensure that the tone of all communications resonated with their respective target audience: retail executives, loss prevention professionals, media, and analysts.

Key elements of the messaging strategy included:

Data-Driven Insights: While some survey data was initially incorporated, real-time adjustments led to a stronger reliance on Appriss Retail’s robust internal data for the 2023 edition of the report. This shift allowed for greater accuracy and more granular analysis, including the first-ever separation of online versus in-store return rates in 2023.

Expert-Led Analysis: Appriss Retail’s internal data science team played a key role in sifting through Appriss Retail’s vast data to analyze trends and determine the most accurate insights. This drove what was included in the report and how it was messaged externally.

Industry Alignment: Partnering with the world’s largest retail trade association demonstrated alignment with perhaps the most prominent retail industry body. This collaborative effort, combined with the NRF’s marketing and outreach efforts, solidified the report’s credibility as a true benchmark of the current state of returns fraud and abuse.

Strategic Messaging: Appriss Retail’s internal marketing team crafted the narratives in the report to make complex data accessible and actionable, balancing authority and urgency with an approachable tone that successfully engaged the retail industry and supported Appriss Retail’s broader objectives.

Results of the campaign far exceeded the company’s objectives. Marketing efforts resulted in over 15,000 emails being delivered, featuring an 8.69% open rate with 193 clicks. LinkedIn advertising generated 26 conversions, and the report has been downloaded 241 times from Appriss Retail’s website. The report was also housed on the NRF’s website and available for download.

As soon as the report was published, prominent tier one and retail trade media expressed strong interest in the report and its findings. Appriss Retail and Ketner Group managed numerous inbound media requests from several of the most prominent retail industry influencers and media members to discuss the report and its findings in further detail.

Appriss Retail CEO Michael Osborne was interviewed by CNBC’s Courtney Reagan, and the interview appeared both online and on air in January. This interview was syndicated across six top-market NBC stations. Forbes’ Shelley Kohan also interviewed Osborne, and the report was covered prominently in the Wall Street Journal, Glossy, Just Style, TechCrunch, Business Insider, the New York Post, Morning Brew, The Messenger and Fortune.

In addition to strong tier one media coverage, the report and its findings were covered and referenced extensively by retail trade media outlets like Chain Store Age, Loss Prevention Magazine, Retail Dive, Total Retail and many others. Appriss Retail also placed five thought leadership articles in these retail industry publications to further drive awareness of the report and the scope of returns fraud and abuse.

The 2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry report earned 248 mentions and pickups in retail and top-tier media outlets. The collective readership of all earned mentions and online pickups reached over 3.5 billion, and the estimated advertising equivalency of this coverage was more than $6.6 million, according to Cision Communications Cloud media monitoring.

The campaign generated more industry and media interest than any prior iteration of the report. Resulting from the extensive and ongoing media coverage generated by Appriss Retail’s efforts, the company finished the 2024 calendar year with a remarkable 90% share of voice in media compared to its direct competitors and over 300 total pieces of earned media coverage. For reference, Appriss Retail earned 153 pieces of media coverage and 52% share of voice the year prior.

Thanks to the awareness generated by this report and campaign, Appriss Retail is in rapid growth mode. Recently, the company was acquired by an affiliate of private equity firm Gemspring Capital, which was attracted by the company’s strategic vision and strong growth.

The overwhelming success of the 2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry report has positioned Appriss Retail as perhaps the most recognizable name and authority on the scope of returns fraud and abuse in retail. The company’s data-driven approach to the research and creation of the report, combined with the extensive efforts to market and distribute the findings, represents a tailor-made campaign that has both raised awareness of an industry problem and established Appriss Retail as the top company in its market.