Serial Returners Beware – Retailers Have You In Their Sights

You probably won’t keep all 10 – you can’t afford to. But at Zara, as with so many retailers, you’re often between sizes, which meant that the leopard-print slip dress had to be bought in a 12 and a 14. Scrolling, you saw a cardigan in Zara’s ‘You Might Be Interested’ section; the AI-generated selection based on your previous browsing turns out to be freakishly accurate in discerning your tastes. How oversized is ‘oversized’? It was impossible to tell, so you bought it in XS, S and M. You also bought a white T shirt (they don’t stay white for long), clogs (they were reduced), boots (as worn by your favourite influencer), a cocktail dress (for Christmas parties) and a pair of chunky hoops.

Congratulations: you’re probably a serial returner. Only, not congratulations, because that’s a Very Bad Thing. A recent report by logistics company ZigZag claims that shoppers with a habit of changing their minds will send back an average of £1,400-worth of product each year – to a total of £6.6bn.

According to the report, serial and slow returners are considered to be impulsive shoppers, who tend to change their mind after suffering buyer’s remorse. ZigZag’s chief executive warns retailers will ‘clamp down on spiralling costs and returns fraud by introducing paid returns that hone in on abusive returns behaviours’.

Harsh words indeed. Unnecessarily harsh, surely. We didn’t ask for AI to urge us into buying more stuff. Nor did we ask to see those panic-inducing ‘243 others are viewing this item’ pop-ups. And we certainly didn’t ask retailers to be so random in their sizing.

Granted, a small number of customers – 16% in the survey – knowingly buy clothes to wear for a specific event before returning. But this practice is as old as the hills, not limited to e-commerce. For most of us, the returns process is something we actively try to avoid: nobody has time to stand in a long post office queue, while the very mention of the E-word – Evri – is enough to curb even the most raging shopping habit.

Yes, some of us buy too much, but usually because we’re unsure, rather than abusing the system. It’s ridiculous to expect a customer to commit to a purchase without trying it on, and the vast savings DTC (direct to consumer) retailers make by not having to rent, heat, power and staff bricks-and-mortar stores shouldn’t be overlooked in the equation.

Demonising customers for over-ordering is blame-focused, when it should be solution-focused. Although it seems as though retailers have already found a solution: by charging us for online returns. H&M, Boohoo, Zara, New Look and Uniqlo al- ready do, with more retailers set to follow. If it encourages us to shop more mindfully, return fees are a positive thing. After all, were we shopping in-store, we’d incur transport costs to get there. Wherever and however we shop, it’s really not cool to employ every trick in the book to tempt us to buy more than we plan to, then shame us when we do.