While recent years have proven to provide a significant boon to the retail industry, more and more organizations are dealing with excessive amounts of returns. Despite the fact that most returns are a result of customers making a purchasing error, majority of organizations have a no hassle return policy. Mostly for the instances where they themselves are guilty for sending customers the wrong order. Retailers are aware that mistakes happen. What they’re less fond of are the operational costs they’re left to incur in order to resolve the issue. In some instances, these returns can leave a sour taste in customers’ mouths, leaving them less interested in shopping with the retailer. The information shared in this post and included infographic should help retailers reduce the amount of returns they’re facing over the next year.
When organizations attempt to reduce returns, they often first look to improving their website’s ease of use and accuracy. Of the top reasons for returns, products not matching the images or descriptions provided are atop the list. Customers that receive an item unlike what they believe they order will almost guarantee a swift return. Retailers must prioritize honest descriptions and images, unedited by the major image editing software for the best results. It’s also worth mentioning that sizing has a huge impact on returns, with nearly 52% of all returns being attributed to inaccurate size estimates.
As mentioned previously, almost every retailer will have shipping and return policies today that are largely in the benefit of the customer. Customers frequently exploit the policy by ordering products they know they can safely return for free. However, when customers end up keeping the products they first intended to return, retailers are able to benefit. Not only do they experience an additional sale, customers often experience more satisfaction knowing they could’ve returned the product had they not loved it.
As online retail and shopping as a whole were so popular this past year, the sizable increase in returns is much less shocking. Returns this past year saw a 70% year-over-year increase. This issue is made worse with certain customers scamming retailers through wardrobing or bracketing tactics, both of which void most return policies by these retailers. Limiting the ways in which customers can take advantage of retailers is therefore imperative.
How can retailers protect themselves against fraudulent purchases, though? Through the help of third-party anti-fraud tools, any retailer is capable of identifying a stolen card the moment its swiped. When discovered, retailers can block every transaction from the stolen cards and offer full refunds to the original card holder. This is only one of the methods that these providers offer retailers to reduce the cost of returns on their business.
No matter the size or scope of your retail operation, you will always have to accommodate to customers when it comes to returns. In the interest of reducing these return rates and keeping customers satisfied, the information found within this post and accompanying infographic should help your organization do just that. If you were hoping to learn more about how other retail organizations go about reducing their return rates, be sure to take a minute to review the infographic coupled alongside this post. Courtesy of Signature Payments.