E-commerce sales hit a record high of almost $400 billion in 2016. A promising number until you look closer at other figures and realize a good portion of this feeds into the "Ghost Economy" (#Buzzword alert).

Many factors go into it but returns are a significant impacter:

• 40% of shoppers are buying multiple items online with the intent to return all but their favorite item
• E-commerce sales has a return rate of 30%
• Because less than half of returned goods are re-sold at full price, retailers may end up losing 10% of their sales
• And 84% of returned garments end up in a landfill or incinerator

Merchandise returns alone accounted for more than $260 billion in lost sales in 2015. Add out-of-stocks and overstocks into the equation and you've reached an unfathomable number.

Bracketing, buying multiple articles knowing all but one will be returned, results in 38% of returned online clothes. Women under the age of 30 and high-income shoppers are most likely to bracket.

• 44% of women surveyed have done this in the past year (vs 30% of men)
• 45% of shoppers aged 18-29 have done this in the past year (vs 38% of shoppers over the age of 30)
• 48% of high-income shoppers (income of more than $100k) have done this in the past year