Unslip

The anti-return policy: Walmart and Amazon don't want your stuff back

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 by Snacks

Returning your returns... So meta. The new approach to online returns: don't do them. From Amazon, to Walmart, and Chewy, companies are starting to say “keep it,” according to the WSJ. They’ll refund you for that tight-fitting beanie — but they don't want it back. Why so nice?

  • It's a price thing. Some returns are more expensive to process and ship than the products actually cost — especially cheap or heavy items. Companies use AI to do the math.
  • Returns can cost companies $10 to $20, excluding transportation. So it makes more economic sense to just refund you for that $7 PopSocket (iPhone was allergic).

Do "one-size-fits-all" fuzzy socks count?... The number of ecommerce returns in 2020 jumped 70% from 2019. More than half of that was driven by soaring online sales. A fourth was because you didn’t want to return online orders at physical stores. And a smaller part was because... clothes didn't fit after gaining the Quarantine 15.

  • For customers, this is clearly a win. Your pile of "return" items has been growing for years since the psychological hassle is just too much to bear.
  • For companies, making customers happy and losing less money are wins. But it could be a slippery slope ("Amazon return fraud" is apparently a dark-web career).
THE TAKEAWAY

Score one for brick-and-mortar... Ecommerce takes all the spotlight nowadays, but we often overlook the big, hidden costs of online shopping: returns. According to Shopify, online purchases are returned at least twice as much as physical purchases. According to others, they're returned three to four times as frequently. That's wasted time, effort, and money for companies. As return volumes hit record highs, that model just doesn't make sense for some businesses.

Subscribe to Snacks