As the e-commerce market drives overall growth and instigates a profound change in shopping habits, retailers are aware that yesterdays ‘Boomerang Thursday‘ will see a returns peak like never before.
Online fitting company Virtusize says that retailers are waking up to a widespread problem in the online market.
“50 per cent of the total returns we‘re seeing are due to products that don‘t fit. It might be that you buy a t-shirt but it is much longer than what you might expect to see from the pictures,” says Peder Stubert, who co-founded Virtusize. “People are also ordering three sizes of the same item – it‘s the ‘trying at home‘ kind of mentality. 60 per cent of shoppers admit to buying more than one size and every retailer we work with has this problem.”
He says people definitely don‘t want to buy the same item three times and return two. “I think people shop online because of the benefits. People like the efficiency and freedom with online but there are still some disadvantages. Returns are the number one problem at the moment.”
Catalogue retailers in Germany have found return rates are as high as 50 per cent.
“This is hurting them financially,” says Stubert. “These companies have a high sale, and a high return rate is eating up the profits.”
