To be irritated at having to pay for returns??

[HomeBird43]

Ordered some stuff from a clothing website. Sent back the stuff I didn’t want. £1.99 per return deducted from refund.

Wtf? Is this a common thing?? Is this not something that online retailers build in to their margins etc?! I have never come across this before.

I've taken to buying quite a bit from John Lewis, and doing click and collect via my local Waitrose.

Popping to Waitrose is easier and quicker than going to the sodding post office, and it means no delivery or return charges.

It is NOT cheaper than driving and parking.

It might be if you go for a single item, if you want to do multiple purchases, you are better off going to the store than returning 4 or 5 parcels to different retailers.

The sizes are ridiculous. Like everyone else, I wear from a size 8 to 16 but worst, buying the next size up for my kids doesn't guarantee the items will fit when they outgrow something.

£1.99 sounds cheap, so I would not object.

It is NOT cheaper than driving and parking.

Depends where you live. It’s definitely cheaper for me. I live 20 miles away from the nearest decent shopping city which has notoriously expensive parking charges.

I find the returns fee annoying and I’d rather it wasn’t there.

i ordered something from superdry the other day £4 delivery and £2.45 returns fee, it was only because I couldn’t find the item anywhere else that I took the risk thankfully it was a baggy jumper so easy to size.

But like other posters mention the sizing, quality or materials are very difficult to assess online and I like to see it and feel it before buying. I’ve noticed the more expensive shops absolutely include the fees in their cost eg. Boden and Sezane. I got stung by newlook on their returns £1.99 per order, most of it went back because the quality wasn’t great.

Recently with next I ordered jeans in a 10 and 12 Regular and long, I’m between all those sizings. They were enormous, ended up having to get an 8 and return the rest.

I live rurally about an hour from a decent size city the time to get there, the cost of parking, charging the car, needing lunch or a drink means online shopping is by far the cheaper option for me. But returns fees absolutely stop me placing an order in the first place.

true, but if you walk a bit to avoid the worst costs, and add up the return of several parcels, it's not that cheap to drive to nearest post office.

I honestly think the supermarkets will benefit and take over a lot of customers. I hope they increase their stocks 😂

Loads of places do this now. I'm gutted as I was a DP and Next girl but now I stick to shops in town and spend much less. I'm short and petite ranges vary a lot. My wardrobe features size 6 through to size 12 so I need to try on even if they put sizing in as it's never close enough to my actual figure to work out if the size 12 model who is 5 ft 8 and has no boobs is the same hip or waist measurement as me!

It annoys me that this adversely affects plus size women as most of the stores that stock our sizes are either online only, or if there is a brick and mortar store then the plus size range will be online only (looking at you New Look).

So in addition to finding it harder to find clothes that cover the lumps and bumps well, we’re limited to online only and therefore increased charges for returns because we can’t try on first.

I get the retailers’ perspective too but it’s infuriating when the common refrain is “you’ll have to shop instore then!” I can’t!

I agree and also still like next as I can collect and return for free to a retail park with next home near my work. It's also free to park.

The exact same thing happened to me with cropped wide-legged jeans! They were ASOS own brand. I ordered them in blue and loved them so much I went back and ordered them in black. When they arrived, they were 2 inches longer than the blue ones.

Thankfully the return was free but it was still an infuriating waste of my time.

I’m sick and tired of paying for returns too, and the hoops many retailers are making us jump through to make a return. It was so much easier when they used to enclose a paper returns slip.

I actively try and use retailers for whom returns are free.

I’d much rather go shopping in physical shops and make my purchases, but so many shops have closed down or have such terrible stock availability that this is often made impossible, so they should be making online returns as simple and stress free as possible.

Living remotely and then complaining when things are expensive and inconvenient is so weird. It’s part of the nature of living in such a place and is a significant reason why most people don’t do it.

The amount of clothes that the average person buys has increased massively in the past 20 years due to fast fashion. The people I know who are constantly dealing with “returns” are the ones who buy a lot of unnecessary clothes (multiple dresses and tops per order, thinking that a holiday or wedding means you must buy something new rather than just wearing the things you’ve already got etc). Look for more classic styles and save up for the occasional shopping trip in a city.

It's annoying imo. I only ever order in good faith so if I am returning something it's because the sizing is off or the quality is not as expected etc.

I think x number of 'free' returns for registered website users might be an answer. Maybe.

In the meantime, it puts me off ordering from those websites.

£1.99 per item returned or per order returned?

I notice the Debenhams website now says it charges £1.99 for returns. It still offers free delivery for orders over £15 though.

I think some people buy and return endlessly and some also return worn clothing, so I can’t blame shops for charging for returns.

I think it's good as it prevents people from these stupid instagram hauls.

I think it may be down to the grubby influencers buying a shit load of stuff, doing a ‘haul’ to make money on affiliate links and then sending the pile of polyester shit back.

But surely there are more costs associated with running a physical shop. Staffing, heating, lighting, cleaning, restocking etc? That's why it's usually cheaper to buy online

If retailers are saving money by selling online, then surely postage and restocking should be considered a cost of the business model (same as running a physical store. You don't pay to enter a shop!). It's obvious that clothing needs to be tried on before buying and so returns is a necessary cost of running an online business.

I always check the returns policy before ordering clothing. If they charge for returns then I buy elsewhere.

Free returns are essentially a marketing offer/promotion. They became the norm in the industry so we don't think of them this way, but they are. They carry a significant cost to the business and it's one that many online retailers simply cannot afford to bear any more - it eats into their margins too much. Lots of good analysis of this in the financial news if you want to read more about it. Eventually a lot of them have realized they just can't support it any longer (or the "order loads, sent back most" behaviour it entails - much of what gets sent back can't actually be re-retailed, so gets thrown away, too). I think free online returns will become very rare in future.

Many brands eg ZARA do let you return for free in-store, if that's an option, although I appreciate a lot of the reasons people order online is that getting to a store isn't convenient!

Here's a few articles about it that I find interesting

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/end-free-returns-fast-fashion-online-shoppers

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2023/09/end-free-returns/

Like a lot of the digital economy, we were given discounts to change our behaviour - see Uber and Netflix for other good examples of that. Now these new businesses and new channels have changed behaviour, got us to switch to them, and often decimated the old business models they've replaced, they can and indeed need to switch off the tap of subsidizing our new behaviour to make their businesses viable. Hence charging for returns, increasing the cost of your Uber ride and hiking your Netflix subscription price. Welcome to the age of the mature internet business. It costs a lot more than we were charged to lure us here....

I usually avoid these shops or look to see if someone stocks the brand who does free returns. If I go to a physical store I can try on a range of styles and sizes so I know something fits before I buy it. I don’t order things that I don’t intend to keep but that may mean ordering more than one size, particularly as sizing is so inconsistent (as noted above). If I have to order online then the cost and return process is important to me. I used to order quite a bit from Boden, am less keen on them now anyway but last time returns while still free were much more of a faff with a QR code so I don’t even look at the catalogue now. Which reminds me that I was meaning to cancel it. I find nowadays I stick to a much smaller range of shops where I know what sizing is like and that the quality is good.

Absolutely agree with you OP.
Another reason why I hate online shopping.
I would absolutely choose to make the journey into a physical shop and try things on over buying online (and losing for returns).
It's not the same at all and far better

Exactly. Completely agree.

Don't have a choice half the time now as there are no shops

LOL - Boohoo charging for returns 😂. I've never shopped there, but from what I've heard it would almost be cheaper to keep the item.

They will suffer for this because people who shop there won't be sort who can afford to lose money. It will be Goodbye Boohoo, Hello Primark.

Same for Tallies like me (6'2 with a 37" inside leg) - not one single high street shop holds a Tall range. I have no choice but to shop on line.

@purpleme12

Yes, it’s useless.

Also, the sizes and quality even across the same shop/brand are often very inconsistent, so it forces us into a cycle of order and return.