SMITH BRAIN TRUST — With lenient return policies common, about 9 percent of purchases at brick-and-mortar stores are returned and 25 percent to 30 percent of online orders are sent back yearly in the United States. Where do these items end up? In many cases, the likes of market vendors, wholesale liquidators, eBay Power sellers, and "mom and pop" stores purchase the goods via online auctions and resell the merchandise.

Research by Rebecca Hamilton and Wedad Elmaghraby The goal of business is to maximize profits, so it just didn’t make sense to researchers at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business why many retailers and suppliers sign deals that leave money on the table.

To attract more online auction bidders and drive up prices, two things matter: how long an auction is active and the day of the week it closes, finds new research.

The growing crop of clothing rental companies wants you to imagine yourself never buying clothes again. But, can they actually reduce your environmental footprint and the footprint of the overall garment industry?

After the uproar over the Forbes list, Maryland Smith experts compile a quick list of their own, with just a few of the women that should make any list of innovators.

The New York Fed recently decided to explain monetary policy in a comic book, set in outer space. It had us wondering: What other complex business topics would be helpful to see in simplified, comic book fashion?

The burgeoning secondary market of online business-to-business (B2B) auction platforms connect retailers to deeper pools of buyers for their unsold or returned inventory.

In the technology world, what's old is rarely new again, which can be problematic for tech manufacturers. Smith School professor Wedad Elmaghraby says online liquidation auctions have emerged as a potential solution, operating as secondary marketplaces.

Selling new generation models only to be left with returned merchandise from older generations can be problematic. New research explores a possible solution.

When purchased merchandise get returned, resellers bid for the items "as is" in fast-paced auctions. How does bidder experience influence the process?