Long before we all began buying clothes, and almost everything else, online, my daughter had an absolute aversion to trying clothes on in shops. She was probably in her late teens or early twenties at the time. She would buy items, try them on at home and if they were unsatisfactory, return them to the shop and get a refund. It always struck me as a prodigious waste of time. Nowadays almost everyone buys clothes online and the amount of clothing returned, by post of course, has increased exponentially. This is almost inevitable.
Photos of clothes can be more than a little deceptive; something that looks really splendid turns out to be made of a fabric which just feels simply horrible. That’s without the fact that sizes vary from brand to brand and so we often order the same item in two, or even three, sizes. And in that odd modern way it seems that would-be influencers order outfits so that they can take a photo of themselves wearing it, post it on Instagram and then send the garments back. After all, it is impossible to be seen more than once in the same outfit. Goodness, like royalty! And yet I can remember gossip magazines, which, by the way, I only ever peruse while having my hair done, commenting in amazement at Queen Letizia of Spain or our own Kate, now Princess of Wales, recycling outfits!
And a whole industry has sprung up in relation to returning clothes. Somehow you imagine them just going back on the shelf in a warehouse somewhere, rather like the rack of clothes on coat-hangers you see next to the changing rooms in actual, real-life shops, waiting for a shop assistant to put them back in the right place on the shop floor. Not so, as regards online purchases:
“the returns phenomenon (…) has had a knock-on effect across the economy, and in some ways has created its own shadow economy. There are cleaners who revive the returned clothes, delivery drivers, warehouse workers, seamstresses, packaging manufacturers and waste management companies whose jobs arguably exist because we just can’t stop sending stuff back. Entire new businesses have sprung up or expanded to deal with – and feed off – our returns obsession.”
A big problem apparently is make-up on the neckline of clothes (how much make-up do some people wear, for goodness sake?) and dirt on the hemline of longer items. And then there are buttons popped off and zips broken as people squeeze into ambitiously small items of clothing! And it would seem that some folk don’t just order clothes to be photographed in and then return them. Oh, no! Some wear them for a night out, with the price tag labels tucked out of sight and then send them back! Have they no shame!?
Of course this is not a new phenomenon. Years ago I stood in a returns queue in a big store, probably returning something my daughter had decided not to buy after all, and witnessed an argument between a shop assistant and a returner. The dress in question smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke that even I could smell it from my place in the queue. The returner swore the dress had not been worn! In the end a manager was called and, perhaps on the principle that the customer is always right, the return was accepted and a refund given!”
Here’s another odd bit of this habit of ours: there is even a specialist organisation dedicated to studying the returns phenomenon: the Product Returns Research Group (PRRG) at the University of Southampton. “Regina Frei, a professor of operations and supply chain management who leads the group, has found that it costs companies £11 to deal with the return of an £89 item, in a situation when 20% of orders come back. Frei has also spoken to warehouse workers and discovered that many businesses don’t know the real reasons products are sent back – 70% of returns are logged as a “change of mind” by the customer, partly because this is the first thing that workers can click on their drop-down menus.”
Rather a lot of returns end up in landfill: .“If it’s not in perfect condition, if there is a delay in the shipping or in the processing, or if you keep it for quite a long time before returning it, then it’s not going to be resold,” Frei says. Third-party returns platform Optoro estimates that only 50% of returns will be.
So that’s one aspect of the environmental impact of returns. Then there’s all the packaging - most things come in individual plastic bags which won’t open without tearing - and the vans trundling back and forth delivering and then sending back all those purchases. So much for protecting the environment!
Happy shopping!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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