Such is the case with GLP-1 drugs. GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound are prescription weight-loss drugs that are rapidly changing consumer purchasing behavior. Around one in eight U.S. adults have already used them, and millions more are expected to over the next few years.
Instead of focusing on healthcare or food consumption impact, as normal people would, let’s discuss how this will affect retailers and clothing returns.
Why More Weight Loss Doesn’t Automatically Mean Better Retail Sales
At first glance, you’d think this should be great news for apparel retailers. More people changing sizes should mean more clothing sales.
But sales are only half of the equation. How many of those items are coming back? Consider this:
- Someone who buys a medium today, only to discover it’s already too big a few weeks later.
- They order a small, return the medium, and a month later they’re shopping again.
- Many costumers buy multiple sizes with the intention of sending at least one back (source: ReturnPro GLP-1 report).
- Others are holding onto clothing they’ve already outgrown because they’re still losing weight and aren’t ready to decide what to keep.
- Multiply that by millions of shoppers, and suddenly, the returns department is carrying a much heavier load than anyone expected.
The Returns Wave Retailers May Not Be Forecasting
From a logistics perspective, those returns don’t disappear. They simply haven’t arrived yet.
Now you’ve got yourself a forecasting problem. Retailers can see today’s outbound orders, but they can’t always see tomorrow’s inbound returns sitting in closets across the country. Current return volume may only represent part of what’s eventually coming back.
That’s a difficult position to manage if you’re responsible for inventory planning.
How GLP-1 Drugs Affect Retail Logistics
• More frequent wardrobe replacement
• Higher apparel return rates
• More bracketing (ordering multiple sizes)
• Delayed returns
• Harder inventory forecasting
• Greater need for recommerce
• Increased reverse logistics costs
Why Inventory Planning Is Becoming More Difficult
There’s another wrinkle. Returns aren’t spread evenly across every size. They’re concentrated in the sizes people are leaving behind—typically Medium, Large and XL.
Those also happen to be the sizes retailers traditionally stock most heavily. So the inventory you invested in most aggressively can quickly become the inventory returning to your warehouse in the greatest volume.
A relatively small increase in return rates can erase millions of dollars in margin for a large apparel retailer, especially once markdowns, processing costs and delayed resale opportunities are factored in.
The Recommerce Opportunity Hidden Inside Higher Returns
What’s interesting is that not all of these returns represent lost value. Some are an opportunity to recover value instead of sending perfectly good inventory to liquidation.
Retailers that recover the most value won’t necessarily have the lowest return rates; rather, they will be the ones who know what to do once an item is returned: Can it go straight back into inventory? Should it be routed to recommerce? Is it being graded accurately enough to recover its value?
Items intended for resale, rather than clearance, fetch a significantly higher price. And that keeps your profit margins healthy –just as getting the best shipping rates does.
Those decisions have always mattered.
Now, the volume just makes them impossible to ignore.
