With online retail sales rising by 10 percent annually, the volume of returns is also growing. According to research from market data firm Statista, returns for online sales tend to be two to three times more frequent than returns for in-store sales, with 15 to 30 percent of online purchases returned, compared to 8 to 9 percent of merchandise bought in-store. UPS estimates that nearly $42 billion of the total $138 billion in products sold online during the 2019 holiday season in the U.S. will be returned, which is up from $37 billion the previous year.