'Tis The Season Of Returns

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Before becoming a fashion photographer, I worked for a fashion brand for many years and I can tell you, without the shadow of a doubt, that one of the worst nightmares for retailers is the reverse logistics (a.k.a. the returns). The return of an item shopped online unleashes an inverse journey that accounts for a loss of an average of £2.2 billion for businesses, according to figures from early 2018. Will online shops ever be able to reach the point of no return?

The sales process does not end when the product reaches the hands of the consumer, it ends when the consumer is satisfied with what they have bought or have been gifted. For Black Friday last year, I wrote a post where I spoke about how selling more doesn’t equate to making more profit. And this fact is even clearer when you are dealing with returns. It used to be that the average returns rate for offline shops was 8.9%, but in today’s e-commerce environment the rate has gone up to 30%.

Just picture that, 30% of what a brand sells online will be returned to them and, sadly, if a brand wants to stay competitive in today’s market they will probably have to cover all the returns expenses: shipping, quality checking, sorting, re-stocking, re-selling, etc. As unfair as this may sound, offering free returns are a necessary evil. If brands want to stay relevant and possibly sell more they have to accept the fact that returns are part of their cost of doing business.

Minimizing this returns rate is one of the biggest challenges for retailers nowadays. Many have already started investing resources in tackling one of the main reasons for customers returns, which is sizing. You may ask yourself, why is it that in 2019 we still haven’t found a way to have global standard fitting metrics? Well, mainly because there is no such thing as a standard type of body with standard proportions. But, there are many other reasons which include fabric types, pattern designs, etc which affect the way that the clothes fit. Two identical size medium t-shirts with exactly the same measurements but made out of different types of fabric have a different fit.

The whole sizing problem deserves a new blog post on its own (stay tuned). But basically, back in the day, you would go to a brick and mortar shop, you would try on the product and then you would decide whether to buy it or not. These days, most of our shopping is done online and it is common practice to buy several sizes of an item and return the ones that don’t fit. This comes with an immense cost for the retailer.

Sizing is not the only reason for returns, other reasons include defective items, fraud (wear and return) or simply how easy and inexpensive it is to return an item. But, no matter the reason for the return, the whole reverse logistics process comes with big consequences:

  • Cost of reverse logistics: like I mentioned before, returns are really expensive. The item that is returned needs to be shipped back, checked for defects, sent to the warehouse from where it came from (most brands outsource the returns process and the items are shipped to a different warehouse when they are returned) and re-stocked so that it can be available for sale again.

  • Missed season: when dealing with seasonal products, the whole returns process can take too long for the item to be re-sold under the same season. This affects particularly fashion brands that would end up sending the item to outlets or reselling them on the secondary market (TJ-Maxx, or ‘TK-Maxx’ in the UK, specializes in buying this type of stock).

  • Customer loyalty: as I said before, returns are a necessary evil. Not offering a simple and free returns policy may discourage customers from buying from a brand again.

  • The environment: this is a consequence that should concern both the brand and the consumer, because shipping an item twice, back and forth, has double the carbon footprint. Also, some retailers like Amazon don’t provide return labels and the customer has to print them at home or find a place to print them, which has an impact on the environment of its own.

Finding a solution to reduce the number of returns will require involving both brands and consumers. On the one hand, brands need to make greater efforts in providing more accurate ways for consumers to see how a product fits. On the other hand, consumers should be aware of the consequences of returning an item and refrain from practices like the ones mentioned prior (e.g. buying several sizes of the same item and returning the ones that don’t fit).

Reaching the point of no return might take longer than expected, but understanding this reality as brands and as consumers might help make the buying process more successful and hopefully reduce its impact on the planet.

Photo credit: behind the scenes shot by Facundo Bustamante.

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New Year News: New Newsletter

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I am aware that the title of this first post of 2019 is like a tongue twister, but I sort of like how you can’t read it more than three times in a row without starting to get it wrong. And now that I’ve got your attention, here are the New Year News: I’ve designed a new newsletter to inform my subscribers about the updates in my blog.

If you are subscribed to my blog updates, you already noticed that the email that I send weekly has been completely redesigned. If you haven’t subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? The new newsletter features a link to the current week’s post, a link to an image that I have taken, a link to an article or post that I have read in the recent past and that I feel is worth sharing, and a link to a post from my blog’s archive. You can check it out here!

For the longest time I wanted to be able to share with my subscribers something more than just an update from my blog, but I just couldn’t figure out how to do it. It wasn’t until I subscribed to Carl Burkitt’s newsletter entitled Carl Tells Tales that I found the inspiration that I needed. If you don’t know Carl, please go check him out and subscribe to his newsletter.

I hope that you are as excited about these changes as I am! Thanks for reading and thank you so much for your continuous support!

Happy 2019!

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One Singular Sensation

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Yesterday, I watched the movie ‘A Chorus Line’ for the first time and when the cast started singing ‘One Singular Sensation’ I thought to myself that this is the perfect set of words to describe the special feeling of this season. The cold, the decorations, the friends and family gatherings, “these are a few of my favourite things!” However, being so fond of this season made me feel very guilty for a long time because I am a Humanist and, even though I was brought up in an atheist family, I’ve been celebrating these holidays all my life. In our defence, “everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we?”

Long before Christianity took over Europe, many cultures had celebrations throughout the year that are now considered as part of the Christian religious calendar. Christians appropriated of most of the Pagan festivities and made them their own, like conveniently making us believe that their prophet was born in late December so that we had to celebrate Christmas instead of the Winter Solstice. So, if I’m not Christian, I shouldn’t feel bad about celebrating this season because these holidays are not even theirs in the first place. They just took over them.

Anyway, if you think about it, Pagan festivities were also religious festivities and, as a Humanist, I am a non-religious person and I shouldn’t even be celebrating those either. What a conundrum! Perhaps the solution that I should come up with for my dilemma is to appropriate myself of the already appropriated festivities and make them my own, taking out the religious connotations and the myths and making this season about being happy for the people in my life and about sharing this happiness and love with others. In the end, that is what being a Humanist is all about.

Happy Holidays 2018 and let Love be stronger than the differences that divide us.

Photo credit: photo by Ivan Weiss.

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