The International Post Corporation (IPC) Common Return Platform has reached two million returned items at the end of the third quarter (Q3) in 2015.
In September 2015, more than 215,000 labels were created on a par with the yearly average for the first four years of the solution. Moreover, the number of items returned during the first three quarters of 2015 (891,278) almost equaled the number of items returned during the previous four years (1,109,245).
Five years ago, IPC created the IPC Easy Return Solution together with five European posts. Since then, the solution has evolved due to market needs and now supports several international mail networks under the IPC Common Return Platform (CRP), which was launched two years ago.
The Common Return Platform provides a return service enabling postal operators to collaborate on returning cross-border parcels to e-retailers. In simple terms, it allows e-customers in country A to return goods to e-sellers in country B. The service allows authorized returns to be accepted at postal counters without payment, and then returned through the postal network to the e-seller that authorized the return.
The service has grown from the five original participating posts bpost, Deutsche Post DHL, Le Groupe La Poste, Royal Mail Group and PostNL to 10 authorizing posts and around 30 accepting posts in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.
December 8, 2015