Where do those online shopping returns go? Many wind up at this Pennsylvania warehouse.

The end of the holiday shopping season means the start of the return rush. 

Customers are sending back more than ever thanks to the influx of online shopping — a staggering $890 billion this year alone, according to estimates by the National Retail Federation. So where does it all go? 

CBS News Philadelphia got an exclusive look inside a massive, new warehouse in Berks County where many of the items wind up.

It looks like a scene straight out of science fiction as robots carrying returns race in every direction — crisscrossing paths to drop the items in corresponding boxes. 

The process plays out inside a 100,000-square-foot Happy Returns facility in Shoemakersville, Berks County, Pennsylvania where workers and robots sort through and consolidate more than 45,000 items each day, according to site director Rob Diaz. 

“The robots do the heavy lifting, taking it to the boxes,” he said. “The only thing we’re doing from there is packaging up the boxes, putting them on the palette, and shipping it off to get it home to the merchants as fast as possible.” 

Returns pour in from up and down the East Coast, Diaz said, from as far away as Maine, Florida and Tennessee. 

Similar to Amazon’s partnership with Whole Foods, UPS-owned Happy Returns has partnered with a growing number of retailers to offer box-free, label-free, in-person returns at designated locations across the country. The company’s so-called “return bars” include UPS Stores, Staples and Ulta Beauty locations. 

“The whole goal is to make returns a little easier, a little bit better and to also provide a little friendly competition,” Diaz said. 

It’s one answer to the growing return problem retailers face with more people shopping online since the pandemic. Returns have doubled since 2019, and retailers expect their return rates to rise another 17% just during the holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. 

In response, many big brands have added shipping fees on returns to combat the rising associated costs. Logistics company Narvar estimates a $100 item costs a retailer roughly $32 to get back and re-sell. Transportation is one of the biggest expenses. 

“There are higher return rates on e-commerce purchases because of the lack of ability for someone to try something on before they get it, to feel it, to touch it,” David Morin, Narvar’s vice president of customer strategy, previously told CBS News Philadelphia. 

That’s where Happy Returns co-founder and CEO David Sobie said his company comes in, giving retailers a better option to keep customers coming back. 

“What we found is that when you make returns easy for online shoppers they tend to shop more,” Sobie said. “They reward the retailers that make it easy to do this, and so what ends up being good for the customer, ends up being good for the merchant as well.” 

Sobie said combining returns to get them back to retailers saves significantly on shipping costs. 

“Rather than individual shipments going back one by one from the shoppers to the merchant when they drop them off at one of our locations, we’re able to ship things in an aggregated fashion to the merchant, making it easier for them to receive it and cheaper,” he explained. 

All with the ultimate aim of keeping customers returning for more.