Reducing ecommerce returns starts at the product listing

Aug 27
3 min read

Introduction

Returns are treated in most online businesses as an unavoidable cost of trading, absorbed quietly and never analysed. That is expensive, because the majority of them are caused by the seller.

A returned item costs the outbound carriage, the return carriage, the handling, frequently a markdown, and sometimes the customer. Very few of those returns happen because the product was faulty.

1. Reducing ecommerce returns means fixing the listing, not the warehouse

The return was decided before the order was placed.

A customer returns something because it was not what they expected, and their expectation came from your photographs, description and sizing information. That makes the product page the cheapest and most effective place to intervene.

2. Find out why things are actually coming back

Most sellers have an impression rather than data.

Record a reason for every return in a small fixed set of categories: wrong size, not as described, changed mind, arrived damaged, faulty, ordered multiples. Within a month the pattern is unmistakable, and it is usually concentrated in a handful of products.

3. Attack the products with the worst rates first

Return rates are never evenly distributed across a catalogue.

A small number of lines typically generate most of the returns, and the fix is specific to each: better sizing, a clearer photograph, an amended description, or discontinuing the item entirely. Working on the catalogue as a whole wastes effort on products that are fine.

4. Solve sizing properly, because it is the largest single cause

For anything worn or fitted, sizing is the dominant reason for return.

Actual measurements rather than size labels, a comparison with a familiar reference, guidance on how the item fits, and customer feedback on whether it runs large or small. This is unglamorous work with a directly measurable payback.

5. Show the product honestly, including the unflattering angles

Photography that flatters is photography that generates returns.

True colour, scale against a recognisable object, texture, the back and underside, and video where the material moves. A customer who is mildly disappointed on arrival returns the item, and the disappointment was created by the picture.

6. Write descriptions that are specific enough to be checkable

Vague, enthusiastic copy converts slightly better and returns considerably worse.

Dimensions, weight, material composition, what is included, what is not, power requirements, compatibility. Every question you leave unanswered is a customer making an assumption, and some of those assumptions will be wrong.

7. Use reviews and questions to fix the page

Customers will tell you exactly what the listing failed to say.

Recurring questions and review comments about fit, size or material are a free list of page improvements. Answering them in the description itself, rather than only in the questions section, prevents the next hundred customers from guessing.

8. Look at whether your returns policy is encouraging the behaviour

A generous policy raises conversion and also raises returns, and both effects are real.

Free unlimited returns encourage speculative ordering and buying multiple sizes. That may still be commercially correct for you, but it should be a deliberate calculation rather than an unexamined default copied from a much larger retailer.

9. Measure returns as a percentage of revenue, per product

An overall returns figure is too blunt to act on.

Calculate the rate per product and the full cost including both carriages and handling. Some lines will turn out to be unprofitable once returns are counted, and no other analysis will reveal that — a strong seller with a high return rate can contribute less than a modest one that stays sold.

Conclusion

Treat returns as a listing problem rather than a logistics problem, because the decision to return is made from the information you published.

Record a reason for every return, concentrate on the small number of products generating most of them, solve sizing with real measurements, photograph honestly including the unflattering angles, write descriptions specific enough to be checked, mine reviews and questions for the gaps your page leaves, treat the generosity of your policy as a deliberate trade-off, and measure return rate and full cost product by product.