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Should Retailers Be Cracking Down More on Wardrobing?
A survey of U.K. consumers commissioned by returns specialist ReBound found 84% claiming they have not and would not commit fraud, but 31% think wardrobing — the practice of using an item then returning it as unused — doesn’t count as fraud.
The survey still found that 57% deemed wardrobing as unethical.
Another recent survey of U.S. consumers from returns management software provider Loop found 31% of respondents engaging in wardrobing at least once a week and another 11% doing it once a month. Bracketing — ordering multiple items to try on knowing that most will be returned — was found to be slightly more common, with 54% agreeing they commonly partake in the practice.
Loop’s survey found that 36% of respondents engaged in fraudulent behaviors because they only needed an item for a specific event. However, 72% also believed that with all other things being equal, if a company lets them wear or use items with the ability to return some or all of them, they will choose to buy from that company over a competitor that doesn’t let them wear or use the items.
Loop notes in its study, “The line between customer convenience and business protection is sometimes blurry.”
Retail returns abuse is steadily climbing in part because consumers are increasingly comfortable taking advantage of flexible return policies to engage in wardrobing or bracketing, according to the NRF.
A survey from U.K. e-commerce software firm Brightpearl found that 61% of U.S. retailers would consider banning serial returners. However, ReBound said retailers have to distinguish between the customer who has wardrobed five items but kept 30 within a year and the consumer who ordered and returned five items in total.
ReBound’s Marketing Manager Laura Garrett explained, “Your serial returners who buy a lot of items and then return a few are often your best customers (despite driving a percentage of your refunds) and so should be treated differently than fraudsters and the other kind of serial returners who consistently return everything they purchase.”
Loop advised clearly outlining what’s allowed as part of return policies. Asking customers for feedback to provide more accurate size measurements or better product photos online can also reduce the need for home try-ons. Charging a return fee and allowing free returns only for loyalty program members or first-time purchasers can also help curb return abuse without alienating top customers, according to Loop.
Loop’s survey also found that among customers who haven’t abused return policies, the reason they don’t is because they worry about ethical/moral guilt (67%), have a fear of the legal consequences (14%), or worry about the impact on the business/retail industry (13%). Of all respondents, 53% consider potential environmental consequences when making a return.
Loop wrote, “By emphasizing your brand’s values, as well as the consequences that could result from instances of abuse, you can appeal to customers’ emotional, moral, and logical inclinations — encouraging them to think more carefully before purchasing an item they don’t intend to keep.”
Discussion Questions
What paths do you see to reducing the practices of wardrobing or bracketing?
Do you see benefits to banning or otherwise penalizing consumers for either practice?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Mark Ryski
Founder, CEO & Author, HeadCount Corporation
Keith Anderson
Founder, Decarbonizing Commerce
Retailers have been grappling with this issue for many years, and it will continue to be a challenge as long as retailers need to compete for the consumers. Retailers must remain competitive, but they also completely control their own returns policies and can make any decision they feel is right for their business. Offering customers flexibility and consideration for legitimate returns is just good customer service, and they should continue to do so. However, cracking down on abusive or serial returners is also fair game. Offering extra return privileges to loyalty program members may be a good way to curtail some excessive return behavior, but this alone won’t prevent it. Ultimately, every retailer needs to have a clear returns policy and then — here’s the hard part — actually enforce it even if it means losing some customers.
This is not a new problem: retailers have been dealing with wardrobing for a very long time. There are certain things to prevent it including telling consumers that they cannot make returns unless tags remain on the item, limiting returns windows, checking for any signs of wear and tear (you can also check if an item has been ironed), and offering refunds only in the form of gift cards or exchanges. The problem is that many of these are not customer friendly and they discriminate against those making genuine returns. So there is a balance to be struck. One of the keys is to understand returns profiles of customers and understand where there is a pattern of poor behavior.
At least as described here, “bracketing” strikes me more as being a natural reaction to mis-sizing…so I wouldn’t put in in the same category; TBH I’m not sure I would even call it unethical (again assuming sizing is the reason for it). Wardrobing is basiclly just what it’s called out for here: a form of fraud (We know something is wrong when we start coming up with cutesy euphemisms for it). If a retailer wants to put up with this on the grounds that the tightwads who so engage will make up for it with lots of (other) purchases, I certainly hope they will gather more evidence than self-serving surveys (maybe, just maybe, people who steal also lie? Just a thought…)
Indeed, in a store, an associate has suggested, “Buy both, take them home, see which is better, and bring the other back.” Zappos has been encouraging multiple purchases and returns from the beginning. Without that, does Zappos have a reason for being? The ability to return is a customer-oriented policy. Returns are not the enemy. They just keep customers coming back. Personally, I don’t buy in-store or online unless there is a reasonably open return policy. I feel tight return policies are “gotchas.”
Wardrobing, interesting nomenclature, is another matter. Processes should be in place and rules expressed clearly. Tags must be originally attached. Data systems should be used to identify serial returners. No wear and tear, of course.
And then you have QVC and HSN that encourage you to try an item for 30 days, and if you don’t like it, send it back.
I’d say, that reducing the practice of wardrobing or bracketing will require a combination of transparent return policies, customer education, and strategic measures to reduce abuse.
Retailers can clearly outline what constitutes acceptable behavior in their return policies, and educate customers on the ethical and environmental implications of such practices. In addition, retailers may consider implementing measures like charging return fees or offering free returns exclusively to loyal customers to discourage abuse without alienating genuine buyers.
While penalizing consumers for wardrobing or bracketing may seem drastic, it seems essential at this point to differentiate between habitual abusers and genuine customers because fostering a culture of ethical consumption and responsible shopping will ultimately benefit both retailers and consumers.
Giving employees the training, confidence and authority to enforce clearly written return policies is key to the in person returns. This includes using the ability to take returns which may be exceptions to the rules, demonstrating reasonable judgment to the customer. Online is another story as the extra handling to enforce the policies may not be worth the cost to reject returns. Bracketing is the fitting room experience…and fit is not the only factor in rejecting an item, so that’s a gamble impacting customer experience, not an unethical practice.
As Mark said, this issue is as old as retail. The solution for dresses at least, is really simple. Put a tag on the outside of the garment and don’t accept a return if it’s gone. We did this really a long time ago and it worked!
Both of these practices are problems that have been around for 20 years. I would argue that Wardrobing is growing and Bracketing is shrinking as the higher end retailers are making a very strong effort to improve standardization and consistency in their sizing requirements and QA across the many suppliers that they have. The best ways to control wardrobing is by leveraging loyalty tiers and returns fees. Both of these will help drive reduced returns, increased sales and store visits for those retailers that also have a physical foot print.
There is a fine line with return policies as retailers try to protect profits with strict return policies and the potential risk of alienating loyal customers. It is fine to alienate fraudsters or customers that are trying to take advantage of the system, but you don’t want to make loyal customers unhappy. A tiered approach to return policies that offer loyal customers more lenient return policies than infrequent or new customers makes sense. It is also important to track returns by customer to identify serial returners that may be abusing the policies.
Selfish behavior is sometimes easily rationalized. Almost one third of the respondents didn’t think of wardrobing as fraud. Because…hey, I’m not breaking any laws and the retailer is accepting my return. No harm, no foul…right? But there is harm, and expense, and money down the drain for the retailer. But it’s all built in…right? Single digit returns rates were baked in a long time ago. Double digit return rates are back breakers for most retailers. Wardrobing is outright fraud, and every single person doing it knows that’s it’s fraud. But the lack of any kind of repercussions seems to have normalized it in some twisted way.
Bracketing, as a customer acquisition tool, is not quite so cut and dry. It may be perfectly understandable for a customer to want to order a range of products when shopping with a new and unknown brand to find the sizing that works for them. But after X number of purchases and returns or X amount of time, the research should be done. And the return rate for that customer should fall back into an acceptable range. Serial bracketers can be invited to shop elsewhere. No retailer is obligated to perpetually lose money on any customer. Yes, the retailer might lose some customers. But why would they want to keep abusive customers that are a clear and consistent drain on profitability? The data is sitting right under their noses.
We can scold people all we want, but until retailers spell out some boundaries and guidelines for these practices, they are going to continue. Rationalizing selfish behavior is a super power for some people.
You can’t blame online shoppers for bracketing when sizing is all over the place. If retailers would encourage vendors to adopt standard sizing it would happen less often. But since so much comes from China, where a size large could be a tent or fit a toddler, nothing will change.
Wardrobing has been happening forever and it’s tough to change. Tighter return policies, with requirements and/or penalties clearly listed, might help. The keyword here is “might”.
More retailers will seek granular data on individual shoppers’ habits to distinguish delinquents from heavy users with occasional returns. Retailers may replace their generous return policies with higher return fees, warnings and bans on consumers with a history of fraud.
A lack of action on wardrobing and bracketing sends a signal that retailers accept these practices as a cost of doing business. That’s why retailers need data to isolate high-risk shoppers and target them with warnings, fees or bans. As returns rise, more retailers will say, “Enough.”
Any retailer that bans either or both will suffer in the short run on social media but benefit in the long run. Any consumer that does this is taking advantage of something, and therefore is not a customer you want to compete for. An alternative would be to empower store associates for in store returns however that puts a lot of pressure on the associate (I can imagine customers trying to return things becoming irate, etc. Who needs that?).
This is a problem that retailers have brought on themselves. I mean, did Nordstrom really let some dude return a set of car tires?? Hopefully that is a myth, but it has been around a long time. Combine this issue with the growing shoplifting issue (sorry, “shrink”) and you have a chronic attack on margins, which ultimately will result in higher prices. Nobody wins.
So. Just. Stop. It.
Blake Nordstrom confirmed it happened in the mid-1970s.
Nordstrom purchased three stores in Alaska from Northern Commercial Company and it sold tires, so the guy actually did buy tires there, just from another retailer. I love a good retail
legend!
Wasn’t there a viral social media post recently about a person who returned a sofa to Costco that she purchased 2 years ago because she didn’t like the colour anymore?
If the apparel industry wants to stop bracketing, it will have to come up with a method for predictable sizing. Preventing wardrobing is probably a little easier; tag the item in an obvious place, and don’t accept returns without the tag.
Some retailers have gotten pretty sophisticated at identifying excessive returns and enforcing their policies, but I think there’s opportunity to offer a carrot to complement the stick by letting shoppers rent versus buy.
A lot of great comments here re: prevention. For me, return policies are only as good as the systems and people that enforce them. This is also an area that is open to internal fraud/theft – especially when there are separate systems between sales channels. Stories abound of bad characters gaming the gap between in-store and online systems that aren’t properly unified. The volume of returns for ecommerce is incredible and many the brick & mortar retailers that started selling online during the pandemic still haven’t realized how much of a cost it is to their bottom lines. Many in-store policies and reporting tools weren’t designed to analyze for such behaviour. I always find it interesting that people complain about the cost of stores and staff but ignore the cost of lost sales, processing fees or damaged goods from returns. The total merchant fees for a return can be 6% or higher if a retailer is charged on both transactions.
So… “The survey still found that 57% deemed wardrobing as unethical.” And the other 43% think that buying something new and returning it as new, even if they know it is used, is ethical? And then we teach our employees to respond as if “The customer is always right.” Well, sometimes they are wrong. Retailers must have a policy that manages the problem and also keeps the door open for customers to continue to do business (ethically).
Retailers have the data for repeated offenders for return and it is up to them to enforce it. When it comes to wardrobing one way is to indicate seasonal items cannot be returned after the season and certain event windows require exceptions in return policies. Frankly another way is in the upstream manufacturing to include visible tags that would show when it is worn out. Once the tag is removed then you can opt for no return or return for credit only
This will never be an easy program to implement in retail. The waters are murky. Some customers may spend more, yet take advantage of the system. While others spend less while staying squeaky clean.
But I do think the concept of limiting the banning/firing to customers primarily to those outside a well-designed and easily used loyalty program makes most sense. If you’re not in the program, it’s difficult to track, understand what customers are doing. It also creates a mountain of paperwork and decision making otherwise.
To reduce wardrobing and bracketing, retailers should implement and enforce clear returns policies, communicate the consequences of abuse, and consider measures like restricting returns without tags, limited return windows, and offering refunds as gift cards. Understanding customer return patterns can help identify and address problematic behavior.
Generative AI can assist in solving the problem by developing advanced algorithms that analyze customer behavior patterns to identify potential cases of wardrobing or bracketing. These algorithms can enhance fraud detection systems, providing retailers with insights to differentiate between genuine and abusive returns. Additionally, AI-driven solutions can optimize return policies by dynamically adjusting parameters based on individual customer behavior, promoting fair practices without alienating loyal customers.
Banning or penalizing consumers for wardrobing or bracketing can deter abuse and protect retailers’ bottom lines. It helps maintain fairness, ensuring that genuine returns are not compromised, and encourages responsible shopping behavior, fostering a more sustainable and ethical retail environment.