It’s Monday, I’m Nithya Sudhir. I collect words, chase patterns, and write about whatever makes me curious.
The Retail Return Rhetoric
In 2024, ASOS introduced a return fee.
In 2025, the fast fashion and cosmetics retailer began blocking customers who returned too frequently. The backlash was immediate.
Last month, it unveiled a first-of-its-kind returns transparency tool that shows customers their personal return rate inside the app.
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Free returns, once a cornerstone of online shopping, are being rolled back across online retail.
ASOS is not the first retailer to step away from them. But its visibility makes the shift harder to ignore.
The real question isn’t why retailers are rewriting the rules. It’s why free returns mattered so much to begin with, and what breaks when they disappear.
It is Monday. Let’s get into it.
“When in doubt, buy them all”
As shopping moved online, buying stopped being about touch or feel and became a lot more about guesswork.
Amidst that uncertainty, returns stepped in as the safety net.
And slowly, that safety net started shaping behavior.
💡 Nearly 39% of consumers return an item purchased online “at least” once a month.
Traditional fitting rooms were replaced by the living room.
And to be honest, when do we ever go into a fitting room with just one item? We want to try what fits and what looks good, right?
That exact logic moved online.
Wardrobing became normal. Buying a bunch of products to try at home, with the expectation that most of them would go back.
So did bracketing. Ordering the same product in different sizes, colours, or models, with the intention of keeping just one.
And eventually, that logic, that started as convenience slowly turned into habit.
But this was not customers trying to game the system. It was shopping, adjusting to a new environment. Trial did not disappear. It just changed location.
Free Returns Mean More Than Convenience
Psychologically, this makes sense.
“Free" is a powerful marketing trigger.
The term creates an immediate feeling of advantage and can evoke excitement or joy in consumers. 96% of shoppers who had an “easy” or “very easy” return experience say they would shop with that retailer again.
Lenient return policies reduce perceived risk
A meta-analysis found that lenient return policies increase purchases more than they increase returns by lowering the risk people associate with buying remotely, particularly when time, money, and effort barriers are low.
And when return policies are lenient, consumers perceive higher product quality and lower risk, which promotes purchase intention.
Easy return policies increase trust
Trust is a major psychological driver of online purchases because it fills the gap created by the lack of physical experience with the product or seller. Consumer trust fully mediates the effect of perceived return policy leniency on purchase intention.
It reduces the mental discomfort
Many consumers experience a mental discomfort right after making an impulse purchase. This is called cognitive dissonance.
There are multiple reasons why this happens, it can be due to higher anxiety about wasting money, or fear that the reality might not match the one shown on the website, or that we might end up with it. (Yeah, I suppose we all have a little fear of commitment.)
Free returns offer an escape hatch. They allow customers to undo that discomfort without confrontation.
A recent University of Sheffield research found roughly three-quarters of the 60 million UK online shoppers have a retailer’s returns policy in mind when shopping and will abandon a cart if the policy is not explicit in how it handles multiple returns.
Bye, Bye Free Returns
Recently, offering generous, no-questions-asked returns has become harder for retailers to sustain.
Rising inflation and tariffs are pushing costs up across the supply chain. Return fees have followed. At the same time, retail fraud has become harder to ignore. Around 83% of retailers now cite fraud as a serious concern, and nearly 45% of shoppers admit to stretching the truth when making a return.
To cope, many online retailers have turned to AI. Roughly 85% now use machine learning in the returns process to flag suspicious behaviour and reduce abuse.
And the economics are unforgiving. Each return can cost a retailer anywhere from 25% to 65% of an item’s original value, once shipping, handling, inspection, and resale losses are factored in.
Seen through that lens, return fees are not just punitive. They are a defensive move. Especially when products come back used, damaged, or unsellable, the cost of “free” adds up fast.
To Return or to Regret?
A study in the US found that 75% of online consumers have kept unwanted items due to complicated or expensive return processes, rather than initiating a return. Some are even ready to overlook minor product issues.
This can easily harm brand trust.
A wrongly delivered item can be fixed. But a forced compromise is harder to forget.
Returns, Rewritten by Patagonia
Brand: Patagonia
Headquartered: Ventura, California, USA
Industry / Type: Outdoor apparel and gear
What they sell: Clothing and equipment for climbing, hiking, surfing, skiing, and other outdoor sports
USP: Built-for-life products paired with environmental activism.
Business model: Privately held. Generates over $1 billion in annual revenue.
Patagonia’s Return Strategy
Worn Wear, Patagonia’s circular program, reframes returns through repair, resale, and reuse.
At Patagonia, returns are treated as feedback, not failure.
They repair damaged gear instead of replacing it.
They offer store credit for trade-ins rather than pushing refunds.
They also resell refurbished products through the Worn Wear marketplace.
And they feed repair and wear data back into product design.
With this, Patagonia keeps products in circulation longer, reduces waste, and preserves customer goodwill even when something goes wrong.
What does this earn them? Fewer adversarial returns, higher trust, and customers who feel aligned with the brand’s values rather than managed by its policies.
What Returns Reveal
Although return technology is good at managing damage, it is far less effective at preventing it.
By the time a return is processed, the product has already traveled, costs are locked in, and the insight arrives late and diluted.
The next phase of ecommerce is not about smoother returns. It is about fewer reasons to return at all.
How Brands Can Reduce Returns?
Better sizing guidance
Size charts that reflect how garments actually fit on real bodies.
Clear callouts for slim, relaxed, or oversized fits, plus guidance on how the fabric behaves over time.
More honest imagery
Product photos that show items worn, creased, stretched, and layered, not just perfectly styled. Multiple body types, heights, and use contexts that reduce guesswork before purchase.
Clearer product descriptions
Plain language that explains texture, weight, stiffness, stretch, and feel.
Expectations set early, not after purchase
Shipping timelines, care requirements, and limitations communicated upfront so there are fewer surprises once the product arrives.
Products designed with real wear in mind
Materials and construction that anticipate friction points, stress zones, and long-term use, informed by repair data and return feedback.
Feedback loops that reach design teams
Return reasons, repair notes, and customer comments routed back into product development rather than sitting in customer service dashboards.
The question that stops me at my tracks is: If we removed returns entirely, what would we lose? Think about that for a moment.
At least for now, returns aren’t going anywhere. But they can become rarer, more meaningful, and less adversarial.
And when that happens, they stop being a cost to contain and start becoming a signal worth listening to.
How's the depth of today's edition?
As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.
See you next week,
Nithya
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