It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the on-line retail world that returns are a major part of the overall business landscape. And, returns are becoming more and more problematic and costly for those on-line retailers. As this Wall Street Journal article points out “Return Day” is no longer just December 26 of each year as many of us remember.
On-line shoppers for years now have been given the opportunity by the retailers to order as many styles and colors of various items as they want to try on and then just return the ones that don’t work. What a great deal that is. On top of that, most on-line retailers do not charge those customers for shipping, or even returns, or do they?
In one real life example a family member ordered a sofa from an on-line retailer with “free shipping.” When the sofa arrived it had some imperfections in the fabric so the customer contacted the retailer who told her, they would send a replacement, “free of charge.” When the replacement sofa arrived, the customer questioned the drivers as to why they were not taking the damaged sofa back and the response was, “we don’t want it, keep it or donate it.”
This is just one example of on-line retailers refusing to take back returns and allowing the customer to retain the original as well as the replacement merchandise. There are many other examples where a customer wanted to return merchandise but the retailer told them to keep it and they will not charge them for the goods.
So how can retailers continue to make money selling products at what must be “competitive” prices, offer free shipping, free returns when they want the product back, sending duplicate items to satisfy their customers and finally, allowing the customer to keep products they ordered and never charge them for the merchandise at all?
It’s clear to us that the “competitive” prices they are selling goods at on-line MUST have a “reasonable” if not “significant profit” built in to the original purchase price to compensate the retailer for “free” shipping and “free” returns. However, having said that, the real question that retailers need to address sooner rather than later is, how long can these companies continue these practices without feeling a huge financial pinch?
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