Selling - Returns

[melindad5346]

Good evening everyone. Are you as sellers seeing a lot of returns on your sales?  I’ve had 4 in 1 week. I put measurements in all of my listings. But, every return states item doesn’t fit.  Just wanted sellers advice please. Do I leave return on at buyers expense or do I now turn it off?  I realize reading is becoming obsolete but EBay’s policy on 30 days return is a long time in my opinion. Other platforms only gives buyers 3 days. Please tell me your opinion and experience please. Thank you.  

[tobaccocardyahoo]

And retail stores with a tight returns policy provide 30 days, and some like Costco allow it forever.

High returns rates come with selling women's clothing. You need to plan for them and profit in spite of them. You do not have to like them.

[theteamsetguy]

@melindad5346 ,

I have a no questions asked free returns. Yes I get returns but its a cost of doing business. At the end of the day I still make a decent profit. You just have to factor return costs into your prices.

[chapeau-noir · Accepted solution]

Sometimes returns come in waves - I'll have three, then none for months and months. Most buyers are honest, as yours have been. 

Your return policy is fine. 

Just keep going. 

ETA: One thing I meant to say - some sellers use tape measures on their items to illustrate measurements, others write the measurements down and use it as an image file. Just don't have the gallery photo with measuring tapes on it - it looks awful - it can be the second photo, for instance, so it will be quickly seen. 

[christworks]

@melindad5346  I seem to experience what @chapeau-noir described: Returns come in clusters. Probably not anything to it, but it does seem to work that way for me. 

I offer free 30-day returns on 98% of the items I sell.

In the clothing space, I mostly sell jeans. Never had a return on jeans, but I did on some shorts and on two shirts this year. Of the three clothing returns opened, one never returned (no refund), one returned about 6 weeks past the day eBay closed the return (no refund), and the third returned damaged (only 50% refunded and no refund of shipping charges). 

Even looking at broader at the rest of my store, rarely do buyers open returns when they message a complaint (and, of course, the request for a partial refund), and even when they do open a return they normally don't bother returning the item. I had a cluster of 3 returns opened about a month ago. None of them sent the item back and eBay closed out the return. 

IMHO you avoid a lot of the scammers by offering free returns and what you do get you can easily absorb because you get more sales by offering free returns. Of course, the degree to which you benefit will vary depending on the category. In general clothing is one of those areas where returns are higher either due to size or color. This is why I prefer to deal with jeans. They are a little more straightforward when it comes to measuring and describing. Believe you me, you don't want me trying to sell a ladies top or outfit. I would definitely screw that up. 😁

It is great that you provide measurements, but it seems a lot of people don't know their current size and don't measure before buying. It is real easy to put on a couple of pounds and next thing you know, you are a different size. It happens to us guys, too. As a seller, you can't control that. Like any expense, you have to bake it into your costs and when you are buying something to flip consider whether there is enough margin in it to make it worth your time should you get a return on it.

Also, be thankful they are being honest when they open the return.

If an item sold once, someone else will most certainly buy it again. Don't lose heart.