How many of your customers mail their return back (on physical products)?

[Delta223]

Question for those of you on the merchant side who sell physical items and request returns to credit refunds:

How many customers actually go through with the return once they've requested it?

I'm thinking of dropping my 50% "rural refund policy" if I see that the actual return rate is fairly low.

 

[SideControl]

TEST.

#1 thing is don't have them "request" a refund in advance. Gives them too much of a psychological congruency hook that they have to follow through on. It's too EASY for them to request it, it's sometimes too HARD for them to follow through and mail it back.

Make it hard for them, so they actually have to get off their asses and go to the post office and mail it.

What return rate do I get? It depends on the vertical obviously. On rebills I was getting a HUGE return rate, but then that was -expected-.

 

[mpmarketing2006]

Very low return/refund rate on physical items. Less than 1%. However, I don't sell clothes - and I understand the return/exchange rates are much higher for them.

 

[smaxor]

Of course depends on the quality of the product. We have a 100% 30 day money back guarantee on a children's education product. And only have a 5% return because the kid loves the product. If you ship a crappy product expect that to go way up. Also, price point is going to effect that as well.

 

[malpais]

We have less than 1% returns in the jewelry vertical.

I was reading in Cashvertising that you can decrease your returns by INCREASING the money-back guarantee time period. The idea is that by offering a 6-month guarantee people are much less likely to feel pressured to try it out quickly and send it back. If you say 30-day guarantee then it may stay in the forefront of their minds when they receive the product that they need to use it right away and come to an immediate decision. I haven't tested this idea personally but it makes sense to me theoretically. We do 90-day returns which is pretty common in jewelry...