Small and medium ecommerce businesses face furious challenges especially those created by biggies like Amazon and eBay. In order to fight for higher conversions, customers are winned over free shipping, hefty discounts, and a free return policy. Ecommerce returns happen across all industries. Returns have been the evil friend of the retailers as it adds extra pressure on the business. When a product is returned or exchanged, it adds additional supply chain cost, plus if not sold, it adds additional depreciation liability; moreover seasonal and fashionable things become a liability over time.
Following are some shocking ecommerce product return statistics:
- 55% of online purchases are made knowing they will likely return some of the items purchased.
- 67% of online consumers will check the return policy before purchasing.
- 23% of products are returned due to the wrong depiction of the product.
While product returns have become normal in today’s competitive age, one must understand that one cannot avoid it. But certain things are under your control, and with some guided tactics, you can surely bring down the return date.
Useful Tactics to Reduce eCommerce Return
- Reducing Returns via Better and Near-to Actual Product Image
Product pictures are the foremost thing people check before making a purchase. The product image in photography and reality should be near resemblance. Suppose buyers find that the product in the image is very different from the actual product. In that case, they are likely to return the product. You can make your product quite appealing with the right photography skills and different angles and videos.
- Return Policy Should Not be After-thought
With the above statistic, you know that 67% of online consumers will check the return policy before making a purchase. Having a good and thoughtful return policy is vital beforehand to maintain good customer relationships. Whatever you choose as your return policy, keep it simple as a simple return policy is the most appreciated policy by the customers, and it helps to drive more sales & build loyalty.
- Dynamic Size Guide
One of the major reasons buyers return the product is due to the misfit size of the product, especially clothing and footwear products. Ensure to put the size guide on the website, app or estore, which should be easy to understand, timely updated, and of course accessible guide on desktop and mobile, help to make the right decision. Additionally, you can make the best use of advanced technologies like virtual reality to minimise the chances of products returning. This will lower the volume of fitting-based returns and impede customers from ordering multiple sizes of the same product.
- Best Customer Service
An effective after-sale service is essential to offer a seamless shopping experience to customers. Make it easy for them to reach customer service so that you can prevent them from getting frustrated and returning products because customers might have a query on how to use them. A good percentage of returns can be prevented by answering and solving customers’ queries promptly.
- Good Packaging is Unsaid Rule
Packaging differs from item to item, but the core thing to keep in mind is that it should be able to protect the item. Sometimes due to poor packaging, the product gets damaged in transit, due to which the product arrives damaged or broken, which boosts the return rate. Add an extra bubble layer or special packaging for fragile products. You can label the package with what’s inside except gifts, as most parcels are handled roughly, and the label helps to protect it from damage. Even after serious effort, if your packages arrive damaged, you need to talk to the delivery partner or change it once for good.
- Promote Exchange to Reduce Return
Research has shown that the majority of consumers prefer to exchange the product instead of returning it. But if your customers wait for a long time, then chances are that they will turn to your competitors, and you will lose your customers forever. The best solution to beat the situation is to offer a seamless return process.
- Avoid Order Mess Up
When dealing with multiple selling channels, the chances of messing up with orders get high. Once a bad experience is a bad experience forever. We truly understand that it becomes tough to manage multiple selling platforms single-handedly, and that is why we offer you to take the help of multichannel order management software like Sellershub. It helps to manage all your orders under a single dashboard.
- Encourage Buying via Data-driven Emails
The first step is to identify the potential problem associated with a product. Create a list of customers who have bought that product. Now send the email content on the potential problematic product. For example, a customer bought a satin dress, and you think that fit can be a problem due to which product may get returned. Now send the customer email telling them to check the content to style the satin dress with different things. This helps win customers’ faith in your product, and chances of return get reduced.
- Finding the Faults
The bitter truth about the ecommerce business is that despite best efforts, returns are inevitable. Instead of taking the return as a depressing event, take it most positively by analysing the kind of products that are returned frequently. Go to the feedback and understand why this kind or this product is returned frequently. Identify a problem of problematic trends, product design, poor services, impractical use, etc., to bring out the best solution for business.
Winning them Back with Sellershub
The ultimate goal of the ecommerce business is to make customers happy while earning good revenue and the best way to do so is by purchasing the order management software from Sellershub. It allows you to manage the order and other aspects of business flawlessly. With us, you will get the complete data analysis to make better order management strategies.