Free returns disappearing from retailers | The era of free returns — an essential part of the rise of online shopping — is ending
Free returns disappearing from retailers | The era of free returns — an essential part of the rise of online shopping — is ending
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To be clear, what’s under discussion is free shipping on returns. And fine, whatever. It will be annoying, but if the price of returning in the same packaging is known at purchase time, I’ll survive and adjust my shopping with that vendor as necessary.
If free shipping on returns disappears, I won’t shop online anymore
Easier said than done for a lot of folks. Online shopping put a lot of malls and other stores out of business. Good luck finding clothes anywhere but Walmart and the Internet.
At least the malls in my city seem thriving. A massive number of clothing stores especially. It's hard to picture clothing stores having issues since being able to try them on is still more convenient than free returns. And all those clothing stores have survived decades of extreme competition, since any given mall has a dozen to two dozen stores that often feel near identical.
I can see this being true for small towns maybe, but I do most of my clothes shopping in stores anyway. Most of my online shopping is electronics
The thing I'm most likely to stop buying online without free returns would be clothing. Online clothing retailers should 100% know that a purchase is never final until the person gets it and tries it on. It's too common to have to send items back for fit - I'd just start going to the store and trying it on there again instead of paying for each return.