You may be wondering, why would someone need help figuring out how to open an old-fashioned brick-and-mortar store? I mean, this is hardly a new technology we are talking about here. But retail in a physical location can add a whole bunch of new complications for businesses that are used to operating just online. You have to find a location, negotiate a lease, pay the rent, hire human staff, figure out how to lay out an actual physical store, not just the website, how the lights turn on, the alarm system. There's a lot of stuff.

Now, clearly, a business is not going to open a physical store and pay rent and pay all those other bills just to let customers return things. That wouldn't quite be worth the hassle. But returning something is also an opportunity for a retailer because then that customer will, of course, be in the physical store and might look around and buy something else. And in fact, a recent study from Wharton found that customers who enter a physical store end up spending more, and the products they do buy are more expensive.