According to the Wall Street Journal, shoppers are "fighting back" against retailers who have put more stringent rules in place for returns. But the new rules are no surprise. During the pandemic we were all encouraged to stay home and shop online with the promise that returns would be no problem. And we responded! The overall return rate doubled, and only dropped a little way back to normal last year.
What's more the industry estimates that more than a tenth of returns are fraudulent in one way or another. Of those, the most common form of return fraud is "wardrobing," the practice of wearing something once and then returning it.
So now retailers are fighting back. And shoppers are fighting back against the fighting back. Merry Christmas.
Give the average person the opportunity to abuse a privilege or benefit and they will. Which eventually leads to everyone losing them. Merry Christmas indeed.
Bullshit. This is the industry. Their profits are being cut into and they want them back. In a deeply flawed industry.
https://youtu.be/F6R_WTDdx7I
No need to shoplift!
Until you get to a store with the merchandise locked up behind plexiglass, there is nobody manning the checkout registers (because they have to go unlock the goods for others), and the self-checkout machines have all locked up. Well, I only have so much time in the day, so I'm not waiting around.
I wonder how much of the large spike is a result of a sudden increase in online shopping. Buying clothing online is particularly problematic, as sizes can vary. In olden times, when clothing was bought at a retail store, you could try it on to see if it fit. We've returned quite a bit of clothing bought online when it didn't fit right.
I shop for most of my clothes online these days (I don't live near any of the retailers whose brands I like) and return maybe 2/3 of everything I buy, usually due to fit issues (clothes keep getting smaller as I age, for some reason!)
There's an inherent risk in online purchases, is the item junk? Is the item's size not accurate to the clothing you already have?
It goes both ways doesn't it? I'm not showrooming I'm returning the sweater I purchased because the photo showed a much nicer larger sweater than the one shipped to me.
What's the rate of returns for online vs brick and mortar? Online retail also saw a step change in 2020 so maybe the increased rate of returns reflects buying more stuff sight unseen? I think I tend to return online purchases more frequently because they are more likely to be not what was expected, it's relatively easy, and generally might consist of more impulse purchases that I didn't really need.
Fuck retailers. This is the world they themselves created, selling products engineered for planned obsolescence and killing off physical stores and malls in favor of online sales. Nobody is going to buy anything online worth more than about $20 if there is zero possibility to return it.
Also wtf is the problem with “% of retailers experiencing e-receipts”? They themselves chose to issue receipts electronically, and now they’re pissed about what they did?
Yeah they wanna save money on not having physical stores and hiring fewer people, but then get all pissy when some other expense goes up bc of it.
My wife bought an 8x10 rug from a recognized on line store. She noticed a couple of visible errors in the weave and other tiny imperfections. A phone call later after sharing some photos of the problem and we were told to keep it and they sent an identical one within a week. The other one’s in the basement. Great customer service I guess but is that sustainable from a business standpoint ?
Same thing happened to us when we bought one of those cat-climbing trees. A part was missing. When we called the supplier about getting a replacement (or the missing part), they said, "We'll ship another [complete package] right away." When I asked where I should mail the old one, they said, in essence, "Don't bother. Keep it."
A lot of the stuff that gets returned can't be resold, or at least they would lose money on it. If you send it back to them, they're paying the postage and then destroying the item or giving it away. It costs them less to let you keep it.
What does wearing something once, even mean? Tried it on.
What about shoes? I have different sized left and right feet, it's very hard to find shoes that fit and let me be active, especially running shoes which tend to be narrow.
There's a long history of blaming consumers for problems created by the business.
Plenty of people wear clothing to a single event and then try to return it. It's not a new problem for retailers, and is why special occasion dresses have really big tags on them that must remain on them in order to be returned.
I bought a groovy tshirt from an upscale store for more money than i should have paid. Anyway, it came. The plastic bag it was in was ripped open. The shirt smelled like strong cologne and b.o. Someone had partied in it then returned it. It was laughable. It took an outrageous amount of time to get permission to send the shitty thing back and even then they only gave me part of my money. Well, not really my money because it was a credit card lagniappe but still...
As a professor, I can say that cheating in a variety of forms has increased. So, this doesn't surprise me.
I would guess that's the result of a proliferation of "how to cheat" content available on every platform. When there is so much out there, not cheating makes one feel like a chump. Everyone is looking for cheat codes on everything these days.
I think we all feel like things should be getting easier and they're clearly not for the average person. The only thing that's getting easier is corporations earning more profits by optimizing everything for people with the most money to spend. Yes, I know - essence of capitalism. At some point, though, that backfires and the peasants start to revolt.
You captured the essence of how I feel about things nicely. The increased cheating is but a symptom of a world staked against the little guy.
My gut is that Trump's election was the start of that revolt. UGH.
Industry started it, I whined.
Part of it is buying sometimes expensive products without actually seeing them; Clothes/shoes that can’t be tried on and don’t fit or look right; no or inadequate customer service (only automated messages and/or overseas representatives working from a script). Deceptive advertising and fake customer reviews; overseas sellers with essentially no U.S. representatives selling inferior items……and of course customers doing bad things as well.
Lots of reasons to shop locally.
I'd shop locally but a lot of what I need isn't for sale locally, on-line carries the niche stuff say, the shoes in my foot size or the better version of the tool sold at the hardware store.
It's become the worst of both worlds.
I don't think people realize what happens to returned clothing. They typically get thrown out or donated to Goodwill, not resold by the original retailer. Add to that the clothing purchased online and then immediately donated (people don't think it's worth bothering to return it).
Because the secondary market (donation stores) can't handle all of the volume, lots if it ends up in West Africa, creating huge amounts of waste.
While the cost of returns is one issue, the surpluss clothing creates an even bigger problem.
These problems are not going to go away. Younger people clearly want the ease of online shopping. Even Primark is feeling the need to go online.
In the end people who want quality may end up with extreme online shopping loyalty habits - it will take so much trial and error to find the right fit (and be so costly), once people find it, they will not switch brands.
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+1
Unfortunately, the brands themselves keep changing suppliers, or they get purchased by another company. Brand quality is unreliable. And "reviews" are largely based on the quality from years ago - and are therefore often meaningless.
The small city where I live, has lost all of the "big" stores. We either have to travel or order on line. If only sizing was standard. Yes, I order and send stuff back. We have little choice.
Well ten percent of my online purchases have been scammed, as they send stuff which doesn't match the description or is missing or broken.
During the pandemic I had several grocers send me essentially random things rather than what I ordered. So yeah, returns went up.
Weird they seem to forget their own problems.
I feel like I've been 'fighting back against fighting back' in almost every single thing for my entire life.
There are some stores which have made returns a part of a successful business model. For instance, Sweetwater, which sells musical instruments, offers easy returns. The instruments and equipment that is returned is offered for sale at discounted rates as "open box" mint condition used goods. They have a very personalized business model -- you get a follow-up from a sales rep to see that you're satisfied. In the case of musical instruments, set-up can be a deal-maker for a retailer. I bought a high-end classical guitar from Sweetwater that was perfectly set up out of the box and has required almost no adjustments since besides changing strings. Getting a used instrument from a dealer like that is much less risky than most online used purchases of musical instruments.
Unless you have a good local market, which we do, but I understand that's not the usual. You aren't getting personalized help at Guitar Center.
We about one item per day online. We don’t return more than 2-3 a year because they are defective or the wrong item was shipped. If you are returning way more than that, you should be paying for it.
"wardrobing"!
my grandmother did that for my father's wedding. bought a dress for the occasion, left the tags attached (inside), & returned it after.
& yes, she was a democrat, but from a republican family. (granddad was the ardent democrat farmer from a democrat family.)
Why is a return with an e-receipt considered fraud?