What is IRI?

What is IRI? It’s the industry standard designed to automate, streamline and remove costs from the returns process.

Now 20 years old, as part of BIC’s on-going commitment to regularly review well-established standards and best practice for continued relevance to book industry stakeholders, June 2022 saw the completion of the IRI Review Group’s work on the Industry Returns Initiative’s support materials.

The Review Group included chain and independent booksellers; academic and trade publishers and distributors; as well as service providers. It overhauled the collateral to ensure its continued applicability. It is clear, comprehensive and unambiguous. With supply chains challenged, resources stretched and a greater awareness of social and environmental responsibilities, IRI is a must.

The format and content of the best practice documents have changed. The emphasis is on ensuring that both current implementers and potential adopters of IRI have a robust commercial, operational and technical overview of automated returns management.

The full set of IRI support documents comprises:

  1. BIC Bite
  2. Introduction
  3. Stakeholders
  4. Process Specification
  5. Sales and Returns History
  6. IRI Rule Book
  7. Process Flow
  8. FAQs
  9. Glossary

Plus, there is a consolidated version, including all of the above.

As well as the best practice documentation, you can view the technical specifications.