Online shoppers in Germany are on course to send back roughly 560 million parcels in 2026, a new record, according to calculations by returns researcher Björn Asdecker of the University of Bamberg.
That is up from 550 million parcels in 2025 and reflects continued growth in online retail at a stubbornly high return rate: nearly one in four online orders ends up going back, Asdecker told the German press agency dpa.
Part of the explanation, he argues, is where people shop. As more purchases move from desktop computers to smartphone apps, buying has become faster and less informed. 'On smartphone apps people buy more quickly. Less information is consumed before the order button is pressed,' he said — and that raises the odds of a return.
Fashion dominates the flow: more than 80 percent of returned parcels and around 90 percent of returned items come from clothing retail. The cost lands heavily on retailers, about a fifth of which spend more than 10 euros per return; return transport alone accounts for roughly two thirds of that expense, according to the EHI retail research institute. Because many merchants still offer free returns, the cost is ultimately spread across the prices paid by all customers.
Retailers are beginning to look to artificial intelligence for help. Roughly one in ten surveyed by EHI is experimenting with AI tools to analyse returns patterns, though most projects remain pilots rather than routine operations.
