Reverse Logistics In E-commerce: The Impact Of Information Technologies And Formalization

Retail reverse logistics has emerged as a key management issue within the field of supply chain management. Most organizations must deal with product returns and this issue even more essential as number of returns is higher for e-tailers due to inability for customers to see and check the product on site. Because reverse logistics processes are relatively new within many organizations and sometimes lack standardization, the processes may not be incorporated into many off-the-shelf or legacy information systems. As such, it follows that companies that can formalize their reverse logistics processes and find or create reverse logistics/information technologies fitting solutions will have a higher perceived reverse logistics capabilities, effectively process returns and service quality.Based upon data from a survey of 98 different internet companies, this research explores how the information technologies systems and formalization of return procedures affect reverse logistics efficiency and service quality.In this study a survey based on a previous exploratory research and literature review was sent out to 98 Chinese, UK, Germany, Austria, France, Russian and Belarusian e-business companies having substantial activities in reverse logistics. Issues addressed in the survey, such as information technologies types deployed, information technologies operational attributes, formalization of reverse logistics procedures, service recovery quality, reverse logistics performance.The results of data analysis in this research revealed that the use of information technologies and formalization of reverse logistics procedures had a substantial impact on a company’s performance in reverse logistics and service quality. Moreover, information technologies operational attributes had a greater positive effect on service quality when were combined with formalization.The paper’s research practical value is confirming that investing resources in information technologies and formalization of procedures in reverse logistics pays off by better performance in reverse logistics and better service quality for customers. When investing in information technologies managers should take full account of information technologies attributes in reverse logistics.