I came across this excellent article by Amanda Mull in The Atlantic about how free ecommerce returns might be going the way of the dodo.
Processing returns is obviously a massive expense to retailers. While letting customers return goods bought online for free was a much needed tactic during the early years of the ecommerce revolution to reduce the perceived risk involved in buying clothes without seeing them with your own eyes, now that most people are used to online shopping, this could be a perk that is open for being chopped.
“A little bit more friction in the purchase process can be a good thing. In part, returns rates have become so high because online shopping has been built into a perfect vehicle for overconsumption”.
