Management consultancy Accenture Ltd. (Hamilton, Bermuda) has conducted a study that estimates that 7.34 billion euros (about $11.5 billion) was spent in Europe in 2007 to re-box, restock and resell returned electronics goods. This compares with $13.8 billion spent to do the same task in the United States.
Accenture estimates that the average return rate for consumer electronics devices ranges between 2 percent and 9 percent in Europe, which compares with between 11 percent and 20 percent in the U.S.
The main reason for the disparity is that in the U.S. vendors are more likely to accept a return simply because a customer has changed his or her mind. In Europe, with some exceptions, the culture is less accepting of returning goods for this reason. The main reasons for returning products in Europe included; did not meet the customers' requirements or expectations, or the customer perceived them as faulty.
However, between 62 and 85 percent of these returned goods were classified as NTF [no trouble found]. This means that the products did not appear to have a detectable fault or problem when tested by the retailer, carrier or manufacturer. Accenture did not explain why the return rate and the NTF category are both expressed as broad ranges of values. However, as a result the percentage of consumers who claim that a device is broken or damaged is much higher in Europe (59 percent) than in the U.S. (26 percent), said Accenture.