Why do online retailers ask for a reason for your return?

[TheCategoryIs]

This all seems a total waste of time:

• the options vary from retailer
• sometimes the option you’d pick isn’t an option
• sometimes you have to fill a whole new form in with the order details and reason
• I have sent stuff back without giving any reason, no query

So what exactly is the point? Are we supposed to think if enough people say some shoes are too narrow, they will later be made wider? More often than not the same style is not reissued.

Yes, it's data collection to them so it does inform future design/purchasing decisions for the company to reduce losses as returns are a huge cost to them. You're not required to give a reason though, distance selling rules don't require you to give a reason.

That’s interesting @botemp. Some retailers seem so detailed and some so broad with their reasons. For example just returned some shoes and no option to say I just didn’t like them so had to enter a made up reason. I’d be more up for engaging with the detailed ones, which seem more thought through, if they are finding the data useful!

I wonder how accurate the data they are collecting actually is. I’d love to think it might lead to less wastage but not convinced.

Of course it makes sense for retailers to ask the reason for return and they would definitely use that information. Companies don’t want customers to fill in forms just for the hell of it. What a daft question, why do you think they ask?

Most have a comments box though, don't they?

I've put all manner of things, including the fabric being hideous.

Yes it's data and analysed and fed back. Returns are really expensive for the retailer so it's in their interest to have as few as possible

I think the weird thing for me is that if you want to reduce returns you would be better off focusing on the product details in the first place. Many retailers do not give enough sizing or other details. There are photos where models are sitting down obscuring the garment, or you just get the model’s measurements or ‘standard’ as the length.

I do think some retailers make you fill in forms unnecessarily, I think maybe it’s partly to do with monitoring individuals who return a lot. Otherwise there’d be more thought and logic in the options.

I think when it’s photos deliberately obscuring the item it’s because the retailer knows it’s awful but has already committed to buying X amount of them. They’ll always be people who simply can’t be arsed to return stuff so they don’t lose out entirely.

I’d guess that the options that the different retailers do give are the only ones that they are interested in or are able to fix themselves - putting sizing labels in, buying the same design in a different fabric etc is probably easier than getting an entire factory to change their shoe widths or getting a shoe designed from scratch to be more narrow for example.

I don’t answer if it’s a paper return. I don’t do free market research! If it’s online, I just select ‘other’