Rittman reiterated that Appriss Retail has relied on data science for more than 15 years, offering the insights to both brick-and-mortar and omnichannel retailers. “Changing return policies has the potential to harm all consumers, both great consumers and problem returners,” said Tom Rittman, vice president of marketing at Appriss Retail to WWD. Read More: Delineating the Value in Chatbots, Eliminating Choice “It is important for the retailers to track purchases and returns by customer,” said Karabus, “and when particular customers are returning more than a certain percent of their original purchases, they need to be communicated with to determine what the problem is and, at some stage, they need to be cut off,” he added.
Isolating individual customer data helps to identify these customers. Karabus also advocates for a firm cutoff of so-called “serial returners.”
#ASOS RETURN POLICY FREE#
Karabus said “online retailers need to establish firm policies for returns” to mitigate the negative impact on profitability caused by excessive returns, but in this policy incentives such as free returns for a specified time or only on goods of salable quality is advisable. “Over time, most retailers are realizing that this returns issue is a serious problem and a major threat to profitability,” said Antony Karabus, chief executive officer of HRC Advisory.Ĭiting data from HRC Advisory, the online return rate is slowly creeping up to profess a “significant and detrimental impact on retailer profit,” Karabus said, adding that he believes excessive returns are “largely due to fit issues as well as customers buying multiple sizes and colors and returning those they don’t want.”
#ASOS RETURN POLICY SERIAL#
But with the right tech platform, infrastructure and continuous customer feedback in place, will the impact of serial returners still be felt? The retailer also implemented proactive policies including try-before-you-buy initiatives - “fit assistant” and “style match” - to curb returns. Majority of Americans Believe Credit Cards Contribute to Financial Stress Of note, the return policy changes came prior to the retailer’s latest quarter report, which showed an 87 percent profit plunge.
Where there is “unusual behavior” (aka serial returning, wearing items and returning after snapping Instagram pictures or ordering hauls of clothes with explicit intent to return a majority of items), the retailer has made its policy known, but stresses the “change is really unlikely to affect you,” on its web site. To its customers accustomed to spending and sending back hauls of merchandise, fast-fashion retailers such as Asos are chiming in: “not so fast.” In April, while Asos extended its return and refund policy from 28 days to 45 days (the customer is only eligible for a gift voucher after 29 days), the retailer added a fair use change, deactivating accounts of disproportionate returns behavior. “The customer is always right” is the mantra ingrained into retail for decades, but some online fashion and beauty retailers are taking back control over their returns policies to improve profitability.
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