Tools

I run a small fashion mail order company and have a few customers who return products on the slightest pretext, for example, if they don’t like the shade or if the item does not fit, and then demand that I bear the cost of postage. Not only do I give good descriptions of all my products, I also provide size charts and explain that colours may lose their edge in photography. And yet, because the complaints fall into slightly grey areas, I feel obliged to pay for returns. Is the customer really always right?

You are looking completely down the wrong end of the telescope because the mail order business is all about making it very easy to return products. What mail order does is ask customers to buy a product without seeing or feeling it and, therefore, part of the decision-buying process is founded on the ability to return it if it’s not right. The most successful mail order businesses are the ones that make returns incredibly easy. Most people are not buying with the intention of returning so this doesn’t encourage people to buy and then send things back. What it does do, however, is take away the anxiety of what happens if the item is not quite right.

I would make a big deal about the fact that it’s very easy to buy and easy to return if the item is wrong — but it won’t be wrong because the product is good — that’s the message. If you simply cover your backside on the internet then all people will read into this are the possible problems with colour, size chart, fit…

People should feel confident and comfortable buying because if there is a problem they know they can return it. You should pay for the return — certainly. It should be priced into your product. You must know what your rate of returns is and you need to price this into the margins.

Deborah Meaden is author of Common Sense Rules, £18.99

• Tweet

blog comments powered by Disqus