In summary, Implementation of legislation, corporate imaging, environmental concern, economic benefits, and sustainable competitiveness are forcing firms not only to adopt RL practices but also to make them efficient and effective. This review is focused on important issues which are underrepresented in the past literature reviews. The article, through a systematic and structured literature review provides insights into the conceptualization and research on the issues including adoption and implementation, forecasting product returns, outsourcing, RL networks from secondary market perspective, and disposition decisions. In this perspective, total 242 previous published research articles were selected, categorized, and reviewed to find the research gaps and future scope of research. The research gaps were identified, discussed, and suggestions were made for future research opportunity. The opportunities for future research will help academicians, practitioners and researchers in their future work. Classifications and cited references may be used as a broad frame of references to develop concepts and models for the future research. One of the limitations of this study is that select issues were considered for the review. This work may be further extended for other issues like marketing, information technology in the area of RL.