Being a customer feels like going into combat – the era of easy returns is over

Mid-morning on the ground floor of a well known fashion store. As customers wait to try on bright spring dresses or pay for bang-on-trend bomber jackets, the endorphin-rich atmosphere is busy and buzzy. 

But not here. Not where I’m languishing along with over a dozen other defeated shoppers; in the bleak returns queue, tucked away on the top floor. 

The service is glacial. The mood sombre and silent apart from agitated sighs and a growing sense of frustration.

Occasionally someone (guess who?) grumbles sotto voce there should be more staff on the counter. The assistant, who has the grudging air of someone doing us a really great favour, ignores the air of simmering mutiny.

Forget retail therapy. This is high-street hell. It’s slow, inefficient and soul-sapping. A far cry from the giddy pleasure of filling and yes, all right, perhaps overfilling, those online baskets from the comfort of our sofas,

Big companies make it so wonderfully easy to buy things with a swipe or a keystroke. Why, then, is it so difficult and joyless to return items? I’ll be honest; for one crazy moment it even occurs to me we are being deliberately punished.

“You’re not imagining it, you really are being punished,” is the verdict of Henley Business School lecturer Bahrman Mahmoodi Kahriz, who specialises in consumer behaviour and emotion. “Some retailers deploy the returns queue as a deliberate disincentive. And, judging from shoppers’ reactions, it works. Companies offer generous returns policies to lure customers into spending more; because they feel reassured that they can bring purchases back, which reduces the stress of possibly making the wrong decision.

“But once the sale has gone through, ensuring that the returns process either costs money or is uncomfortable, lengthy and not much fun is designed to discourage you from bringing items back.”

New figures from The British Fashion Council show that around 30 per cent of online purchases are unwanted, compared with 10 per cent of clothing bought in person. Last year, fashion companies lost an estimated minimum of £7 billion due to returns.

Serial returners, wardrobers and bracketers

In recent days, Generation Z has been getting much of the blame due to the #KeepOrReturn trend, where influencers showcase their shopping “hauls” in 30-second film clips set to music and hundreds – thousands – of commentators pass judgment on what stays and what gets sent back.

Online retailers are counting the cost. It’s a sign of the times that behemoth Asos has just announced a £100 million hit to its profitability caused by “serial returner” customers regularly buying up discounted clothes only to return most of them.

This, despite the fact the company pledged in 2019 to crack down on the worst offenders by closing the accounts of those it believed were taking advantage of its return policy.

“What happens with a return, whether it’s in store or online, is it’ll go through a manual process to determine whether it can go straight back out, or whether it needs to be repaired, or whether it needs to simply go for recycling,” says retail analyst Andrew Busby. That all takes up resources and costs money.

“Often you get to the point where it’s simply no longer commercially viable.” In that instance, the clothes go straight to landfill or are incinerated; 23 million tonnes were destroyed last year alone in the UK, generating approximately 750,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Shameful, yes. People of my generation don’t approve of the waste. So it’s extra galling to learn that retailers are increasingly blaming us as well; it seems we are all being pejoratively branded according to our shopping habits.

First up are “wardrobers”; usually young people who buy clothes, wear them, and then return them. Social media is awash with tutorials on how to remove and then reattach labels and those bright red “anti-returns ribbons”; which are looped through the sleeve of garments, making them impossible to wear without cutting off. At least in theory. Then there are those “serial returners” mentioned earlier. Finally (mea culpa) are the “bracketers”, people like me who are genuinely looking for a frock to wear to a wedding or a nice pair of ankle boots and have to order multiple sizes, ticking each set of brackets, hence the name.

I say we have to because we’re just not sure what will fit. For decades, retailers have refused to standardise measurements, and I am definitely not the only woman who can simultaneously be a small, medium or a large – sometimes in the same shop – depending on the garment and the brand.

Special mention must also go to men, who are online dream customers. Why? Because two-thirds of them never return unwanted items on the grounds they “can’t be bothered”, according to a survey by menswear brand Spoke. After my recent cheerless experience, when I trudged round various shops bringing stuff back, I honestly don’t blame them.

‘The customer is wrong’

The whole returns process has become unnecessarily complex, with no blanket policy. Instead, rules vary wildly from brand to brand, and from platform to platform.

I could, of course, arrange for the items to be collected but frankly if I had time to sit at home waiting for a courier, I would have had time to visit the shops in the first place.

Moreover, a quarter of leading online retailers now charge shoppers for returns, despite research by buy-now-pay-later finance firm Klarna finding that 84 per cent of shoppers would be more likely to buy from online merchants who offer free returns. Aside from the fact that collection costs an average of £3.53, it also takes an average of nine days for refunds to be processed.

“There’s been this strange shift from ‘the customer is always right’ to ‘the customer is wrong and probably trying to pull a fast one on us’,” says John Sills of business consultancy The Foundation, author of The Human Experience. “Being a customer increasingly feels like going into combat, with customers having to go to extraordinary lengths to prove they’re right.”

He tells his own couldn’t-make-it-up story of spotting a bargain ex-display chair while out shopping with his wife and toddler. As he hadn’t planned on making such a bulky purchase, he asked if it could be delivered.

The surreal exchange went something like this:

“I’m sorry sir, because it’s ex-display, we can’t deliver it. You have to take it home – today’.

“Right. Can I take the chair out to the car which is in your car park, to see if it will fit?’

“No. You have to buy it first.’

“If I buy the chair, take it outside, and it doesn’t fit… can I bring it back in and get a refund?’

“No, no refunds on ex-display furniture”

“‘If I buy the chair, take it outside, and it doesn’t fit, can I bring it back in and leave it here until I’m able to collect it during the week?’

“No, you have to take it today”.

To his credit he didn’t smash up the shop in a fit of consumer rage; he bought the chair and it did fit in his car. But he will not be a repeat customer. Size matters, whether it’s furniture or womenswear.

“To be quite honest, online retailers are architects of their own misfortune when it comes to returns,” is the uncompromising conclusion of Joan Harvey, a senior business lecturer at Newcastle University and a chartered member of the British Psychological Society. “If the sizing was universal and the descriptions online gave more detail then there would be no need for us to order a range of sizes. Instead of blaming customers, major fashion brands need to adapt to the online marketplace they created in the first place.”

For a nation of shopkeepers you’d think we could do better. Until then, woman like me will continue bracketing multiple sizes until we get the right one that fits everywhere. Our only consolation is that now their bottom line is being affected, retailers might just start focusing more on ours.

How the shops shaped up

In Marks & Spencer my returns were met with a blank, if polite refusal – because the staff who work on the shop floor had no idea of the “guest brands” sold online. I had to ask them to check the website before they agreed to take back my Freya swimwear. An M&S spokeswoman assured me this was a one-off and colleagues are generally kept up to date.

In Zara, the queue was slow and the desk understaffed. I was told I needed to show the QR code on my phone. This proved to be impossible as there was no customer Wi-Fi.

The assistant suggested I get the escalator down the stairs and go out on the street, use my 4G signal, screenshot the code and come back, because “that’s what most people do”.

A Zara spokesperson said: “We continuously invest in improving our customer experience with the addition of automated returns in our newest and refurbished stores. Our newest stores also include dedicated returns areas to further improve customer service.” This involves scanning your receipt and selecting the item you want to return. The returns machine produces a label and a paper package is provided. You pop the item in the paper package, put on the label, then post the package into the machine.

Next, which is known for its swift and efficient online service, proved to be outstanding; no faffing, no air of grievance, not even any paperwork. Just a quick scan of the labels and it was immediately sorted.

In Benetton, I pitched up with four pairs of summer trousers only to be told they had to be sent back to Italy by me, as per the instructions, and couldn’t be returned in-store. Oops. My bad.

Many hours later, as I dolefully handed over six swimsuits and bikinis – most of which I had not even tried on – to the jolly lady in John Lewis, she showed me nothing but sympathy. When I suggested a prompt such as “Really? Are you sure?” should appear online to anyone ordering that much swimwear, especially late at night, she laughed. Which is a pity because I meant it.