Cutting returns in fashion: what actually works

Cutting returns in fashion is not won in the warehouse. By the time a parcel comes back, the decision that sent it back was made days earlier, on a product page or an order form, when the customer picked a size without really knowing which one would fit. Carriage, inspection and restocking all cost money, but they only absorb a mistake that has already happened.

What works, for brands and for the professional clothing manufacturers we work with, comes down to three moves: settle the size question before the order, treat every return as information and not just as a flow of parcels, and send what returns tell you back to the people who draw up the size grading.

First, tell returns apart

Not all returns are the same, and handling them as one block stops you from acting on any of them. An item damaged in transit is a logistics problem. A garment the customer dislikes once it is on is a product or photography problem. A garment that is too big, too small or badly cut for the person’s body shape is a size problem: that is the family of returns a brand has the most control over, because it depends on information the brand already holds.

So the first useful decision is to ask for a reason, item by item, with precise choices rather than a free-text box nobody will read. “Too tight across the chest” tells you something. “Doesn’t suit me” tells you nothing.

Deal with size before the order

A size chart asks the customer to measure themselves, read a table and guess how the brand rounds. Many do not bother, and those who do still hesitate between two sizes. The most common workaround, ordering both and sending one back, is exactly what inflates returns.

Fitizzy size recommendation comes at the problem from the other side. The shopper enters their height, weight and a few details once, picks the silhouette closest to their own, then adjusts at the bust, waist or hips. The suggested size takes the actual grading of each item into account, not a generic chart: two brands that both print “M” do not cut the same garment.

Three conditions separate a module that cuts returns from a module nobody opens:

• it sits on the product page, next to the size picker, not on a help page;
• it relies on the measurements of the item itself, collection by collection;
• it remembers the profile, so the shopper does not start again at every purchase.

We have already covered the cost side of the question in a post on what returns cost clothing brands. The principle has not changed: a return avoided costs less than any return handled well.

Professional clothing changes the scale

In professional clothing, the problem grows in size. A company, a hospitality school or a branch network has hundreds of wearers to outfit in the same season. Each of them orders their kit once, often without trying anything on, and the size mistakes all come back together, just when the teams are already busy with the start of term or a site opening.

That is the context for building size recommendation into the order in Fitizzy Pro: the wearer sees the suggested size beside every item in their kit, without leaving the campaign. It is also why we built Return Manager, because even a well-prepared campaign produces returns, and they deserve better than a shared inbox.

Treat every return as information

A well-handled return is quick for the wearer and documented for the company. In Return Manager, the wearer finds their order in their company’s portal, with no account to create, selects the items concerned and gives a reason for each. They then follow the request through to the decision.

Two design choices matter more than the rest. First, admissibility is not a rule we make up: your management system decides it, order line by order line, and the portal puts the question to it as soon as the request is opened. Nobody processes a case only to refuse it afterwards. Second, accepted items do not vanish into a back room: they are grouped into restock lots, prepared and approved, so they can go back on sale or into the next campaign.

Send returns back to the size grading

The third move is the one most often forgotten. If the same items keep coming back for the same reasons, the problem is no longer the customer: it is the cut, the grading, or the way the size is presented. Return reasons are useless if they stay inside the tool that collected them.

At Fitizzy, the returns that come in feed the morphological analysis in Plateforme Pro: the spread of sizes requested, the body shapes the collection serves poorly, the items whose cut takes people by surprise. In a campaign, the rules engine also flags loops, when the same wearer or the same item comes back several times, so that a person looks at the case before it happens again.

What to avoid

• Tightening the returns policy to bring the figure down. Customers send back less, but they also order less, and the size problem is still there.
• Publishing a promise you do not control. What can come back depends on your management system and your contracts, not on a sentence on a web page.
• Measuring without a reason. An overall return rate does not tell you what to fix. A reason per item does.

Where to start

Start with the items that come back most often for a size reason: they usually hold most of the problem. Check that their grading is known item by item, put size recommendation where the customer chooses, and ask for a precise reason with every return. The rest, restocking and analysis, can then be organised on clean data.

If you outfit wearers through campaigns and your returns still run on spreadsheets and email, tell us about your season: we will show you how Return Manager and Fitizzy Pro would handle it for you.