Today, more people are buying things online than ever before. With so many choices, return rates have become a big problem for online stores.
High return rates can hurt a business in many ways. For example, they can make customers unhappy and less likely to come back. They can also make people think the product isn’t good, which costs the business money and leads to fewer sales.
Why does e-commerce have a high return rate?
There are many reasons why return rates can be high for your online store. Some of these reasons include a bad experience with your product or website, the product not fitting well, or the real product not matching the picture or description online.
One of the biggest reasons for high return rates is when the information and description about the product are not correct. This makes people want to send the product back.
People first notice the picture of the product, but they read the information to make sure it’s what they really want. If the information is wrong or confusing, the customer might get something they didn’t expect and decide to return it.
A study by MetaPack showed that almost half of the customers—45% to be exact—sent something back because it didn’t look or seem like what was described or shown in the picture.
This issue is closely related to the product not fitting well or being the wrong size. Let me explain.
How Does Wrong Size or Fit Impact Return Rates?
If the information and description about your product are incorrect, the customer is likely to return it because it’s the wrong size when they get it.
This is another big reason for high return rates. It’s especially true for clothes and shoes. Customers usually look at the size chart you give them to pick the right size. If that chart is wrong, or they get a size they didn’t ask for, they’ll probably send it back.
To back this up, a study by FitForCommerce showed that 63% of customers sent clothes back because they didn’t fit right or were the wrong size.
Of course, we can’t forget about furniture. Sometimes, customers can’t tell if a piece of furniture will fit well in their home. Some studies say that furniture return rates can be between 10-30%, and some even say it’s as high as 40%.
This issue is a bigger deal than getting the wrong size of clothes. That’s because sending furniture back costs your business a lot more in delivery fees.
What’s the Major Issue with High Return Rates?
All these problems with online stores can be grouped under one big issue: a bad user experience.
If your customers are unhappy and run into these problems, they will have a bad time shopping on your website. This will make them not want to come back or buy anything from you again.
Forrester Research says that almost 80% of people stop buying from a website if they have a bad experience.
Another study by the Baymard Institute shows that many online shopping carts get left behind because of a bad experience. This can happen for reasons like the website being too slow, hard to use, or the checkout process being too complicated.
This shows how important it is to make sure customers have a good and easy time shopping online.
If you don’t fix these problems soon, your online store will give people a bad experience. This will lead to fewer sales and customers.
How Can You Reduce High Return Rates in E-Commerce?
In conclusion, bad product descriptions, wrong size information, and issues with shipping and delivery are big reasons for high return rates in online stores.
If you want to learn how to lower your return rates, you can read this article.
