Why You Should Make Returns Easy For Your Customers

I head up the e-commerce department at Liquid Rubber, a leading provider of home improvement and DIY water ingress prevention products.

It’s safe to say that most of us have made a purchase online recently. We’re all aware of what happens after you hit that “buy” button. Once that order goes down the wire, it’s picked and packed from inventory and sent on its way to your doorstep. After the purchase, sometimes buyer’s remorse can set it—or the purchase simply doesn’t work out for one reason or another. When this happens, the result is a return.

With return rates as high as 16.5% in e-commerce, it’s no wonder why retailers are striving to accommodate $200 billion in products coming back to their warehouses annually. This daunting number can lead to some retailers making returns hard when, in fact, the opposite should be in place—you want them to be simple, fast and effortless for your valued customers.

What follows are some reasons why I make returns easy at my online store and why it’s smart thinking to follow suit.

Understand Buyer’s Remorse

E-commerce is such a different shopping experience altogether. I find that when I shop online, I get excited at the ability to look at and compare so many products between different stores. Before I click “buy,” though, I always take a moment to read the return policy.

Why? Because online shopping is just different from a brick-and-mortar experience. You can’t see the products in real life—you’re instead looking at a photo or a video of it. What’s more, you can’t touch the product, try it on (in the case of apparel) or test it out (in the case of electronics).

Once that product arrives at your doorstep and you unbox it, you’re typically left with two feelings (I know I am).

Feeling A: The product is suitable, or you just love it. It’s a keeper.

Feeling B: The product isn’t suitable and needs to be sent back.

As a retailer, I want to ensure that any time a customer has buyer’s remorse, they have the ability to send back a product, giving me a chance to earn new business with them in the future.

Sometimes, this results in referrals, too, because customers tell other prospective customers about my return policy. When shoppers know it’s a worry-free process to send back items that don’t fit the bill, it often leads to new orders.

Create A Reasonable Policy

In a perfect world, all products could be returned all the time. In reality, every product line is different. For example, in my world, our products are designed for home improvement. Once you pop open that lid on our products, the clock starts ticking. Much like in cosmetics, opened products are essentially unusable after the fact.

This means I have to cater my return policy specifically toward the wrong item purchased, wrong amount, wrong color or damaged product received. Most commonly, I’ve found, it’s simply a case of the wrong color or a mistaken order of the wrong product.

This is why I make returns easy. My customers can send me back any product that doesn’t work out and is unopened up to 30 days after the purchase without incurring any fees of any kind.

Build Brand Trust

All return policies are different, but they should all aim to share one thing in common: earning the trust of the customer even when there’s buyer’s remorse.

Brand trust is so much more valuable than a single purchase, folks. It’s a powerful retention and awareness-driving integer that can’t be bought. When customers know that you’ve got their back, the long-term value of that customer is ten times more valuable than any potential loss you might incur on a returned product.

So, make sure to keep this in mind when creating or revamping your return policy. It can be the difference between long-term sales and retention or the complete opposite—the choice is yours.

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