ITF Group Report: Retail’s $849.9 Billion Returns Problem Traces Back to a Freight Decision, Not Customer Service
The Retail Reality Check Report connects return fraud, freight cost, and peak-season prep back to how retailers vet and
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HAZELWOOD, Mo., Sept. 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ITF Group, a leader in 3PL supply chain logistics solutions, today released The Retail Reality Check Report, tracing three of retail’s biggest Q4 pressure points, returns, freight cost, and peak-season readiness, back to how a retailer vets and manages its freight partners.
Consumers returned $849.9 billion in merchandise last year, nearly 16% of total retail sales. As retailers brace for the 2026 peak season, the National Retail Federation is attributing 9% of that figure to outright fraud. That leaves the other 91% of returns with no fraud attached to them at all, landing at a moment when retailers have the least room to absorb costs they can’t explain.
“We’ve accepted a false premise in this industry, we talk about returns as if they’re a customer service issue, something e-commerce has to deal with,” said Sam Agyemang, VP of Business Development at ITF Group. “In reality, many of those returns are symptoms of an execution failure. And it’s always upstream.”
The Retail Reality Check Report from ITF argues that retailers typically treat these three pressures as separate conversations split across separate departments, when they trace back to the same freight execution decisions. A product mishandled in a warehouse or a shipment that picks up too many touches across the supply chain rarely shows up on a return label. It surfaces weeks later, as a percentage, in a different department’s report, disconnected from the freight decision that caused it.
That disconnect extends to how freight cost itself gets evaluated. The report contends that a marginal rate discount from a lower-cost carrier is often a risk transfer rather than a savings, shifting exposure into missed appointment windows, damaged cargo, or returns that never get traced back to the freight decision that caused them. The report also points to a recent wave of broker-liability rulings that has raised the bar on due diligence across shippers, brokers, and carriers alike, rather than resting liability with any single party, making carrier vetting a compliance question as much as a cost one.
“A question every shipper should ask themselves is how many companies measure transportation success only by on-time delivery, and never measure how transportation affects return rates,” said Sam Burkhan, CEO of ITF Group.
The data from ITF’s findings lands ahead of peak season and back-to-school volume, the window that determines whether retailers address these gaps on their own terms or in the middle of their busiest quarter. ITF’s own operating model, built around catching failures before they become returns, chargebacks, or stockouts, includes a 98% on-time track record, a network of more than 65,000 vetted carriers, and more than 100,000 loads moved annually across its asset and brokerage operations. Since rolling out enhanced fraud-prevention and turnaround controls, ITF has seen fraud-related incidents and exposure drop by roughly 90%, and the company holds an in-transit damage rate of approximately 0.004%.
The report closes with five key questions that retail finance, merchandising, and operations teams should be able to answer heading into Q4, covering return-rate visibility, carrier risk scoring, broker liability, ongoing carrier vetting, and peak-season readiness. Retailers who can answer all five are the ones positioned to protect margin this quarter.
The full Retail Reality Check Report, including additional data and recommendations for retail finance, merchandising, and operations teams, is available here.
About ITF Group
Founded in 2012, ITF Group LLC is a trusted asset-based 3PL partner delivering smart, scalable logistics solutions across North America and beyond. From Full Truckload (FTL) and Less Than Truckload (LTL) services to warehousing, last-mile delivery, and global forwarding, ITF Group moves freight with precision and purpose. Its tech-driven approach, high-performance fleet, and experienced team power efficient supply chain execution so customers can stay focused on growth. Whether it’s across the street or across the globe, ITF Group gets it there.
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