If the holiday season holds retailers' sales dreams, the subsequent months hold their returns nightmares. A side effect of ecommerce growth has been an increasing number of returns, the BBC reported. However, retail technology can also help to reduce some of the stress for merchants.

According to the source, online sales often result in more returns than in-store purchases, since customers aren't able to try out items in advance. To help shoppers make more informed decisions, retailers have improved product descriptions and images, but analysts still estimate that between 25 percent and 50 percent of online purchases are returned, the source noted.

With inventory flowing out and in through multiple channels, retailers need integrated systems that can accurately track what they have in stock. RFID tags can help businesses better monitor individual items, and merchants can use retail management software to immediately update information across their systems, as industry leaders at the 2014 National Retail Federation (NRF) Convention explained.

Retail business intelligence can help companies transform returns data into an advantage. For example, customers who buy two sizes of the same shoe are more likely to return a pair, and merchants can use this data to better analyze their sales figures. Stein Mart explained at the NRF Convention that it uses business data to prevent fraudulent returns and reward customers who make returns less frequently.