. Customers expect free returns
Like it’s done with two-day and same-day shipping, Amazon Prime has made free returns synonymous with ecommerce for many shoppers. 79% of customers won’t purchase from an online store that charges return shipping fees.
While free return shipping won’t make sense for every business’ margins, offering it may cause a big enough increase in sales that it essentially pays for itself. We recommend crunching some numbers to figure out just how many additional orders it will take to break even on free return shipping.
2. Refund speed matters
72% of online customers expect a refund credit within 5 days of returning merchandise.
Even in an otherwise smooth return process, waiting too long to credit a customer can hurt brand loyalty: 88% of customers would limit or stop shopping with a merchant that took too long to credit the refund. Ensuring a quick return and refund process will keep customers coming back to your store time and time again.
3. It pays to have a process
If you’re just starting out in ecommerce, it may be tempting to handle returns on an ad-hoc basis. However, as your business grows, investing in your returns process can pay dividends. Your process should make it extremely easy for your customers to make a return, which means making our process simple. 58% of customers say they want a hassle-free return policy, and 47% want an easy-to-print return label.
Penske found that businesses that invest in improving reverse logistics processes see a 12% increase in customer satisfaction and a 4% decrease in cost.
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4 ways to proactively reduce returns
It’s clear that creating a great return policy is important for increasing sales and building customer loyalty. But with the average retailer spending 8.1% of total sales on reverse logistics, it can pay to reduce overall return volume as well.