With sales anticipated to reach $4 trillion by 2020, e-commerce is an unstoppable force. It’s no real mystery why — customers prefer the convenience of online stores compared with brick and mortar, countless surveys show — but it’s a mixed bag for companies that attempt to edge out rivals with liberal return policies. It’s estimated that as high as one-third of online orders are returned, which whittles down profit margins.
Researchers at Google and India-based e-commerce company Myntra Designs took a stab at the returns pain point in a new paper published on the preprint server Arxiv.org. Using a machine learning model trained on a data set of shoppers’ preferences, body shapes, product views, and more, they managed to predict per-customer return probability prior to purchase.
Full story, including the impressive early results at VentureBeat.
