Giving Holiday Returns A Well-Deserved Break This Season

Keywords

B2C

Customer Experience

Holiday Shopping

Reducing Returns

Retail Trends

The holiday season brings a whirlwind of shopping excitement—and with it, an avalanche of returns. From that sweater two sizes too small to the gadget that seemed like a good idea at 2 a.m., consumers want returns to be free, fast, and hassle-free.

But here’s the coal hidden in the stocking: returns are a costly gift for retailers, wrapped in layers of logistics, labor, and environmental impact. And let’s face it, it’s not exactly delightful for customers either—nobody wants to stand in line or deal with the fine print just to get their money back.

From the alarming surge of carbon emissions brought by shipping containers, to the vast number of discarded products piling up in landfills, the environment also suffers from the toll of returns.

But despite these negativities, we still see 67% of eCommerce customers acting as ‘serial returners’ who buy large amounts of products with the intention of returning a portion. Returns are unavoidable for businesses but that doesn’t mean they have to be accepted. Brands can combat this harmful practice by implementing different methods to minimize their return rates.

4 Ways to Minimize Holiday Returns

1. Ensure accurate product information

When customers constantly repeatedly receive inaccurate product information, frustration is inevitable. In fact, it's been reported that 75% of customers claim their reasons for returning items are due to dissatisfaction with a brand’s inconsistent sizing. Incorrect specifications, such as sizing, lead to disappointment as customers put their trust in a brand but don’t receive the expected result. By ensuring that their product information is accurate and consistent, businesses can reduce the risk of returns and maintain a steady number of customers.

Providing accurate information lowers return rates by ensuring customers have clear expectations about their orders. However, it’s a hard task to transfer and display product information to customers manually. An easy way to do this at scale is to leverage Akeneo Activation to map and transform your enriched product data to the requirements of each retailer and marketplace, ensuring accurate and complete information for each channel your consumers browse through.

It’s vital for product descriptions to be shown across all channels such as eCommerce sites, brick-and-mortar locations, and social media platforms. However, while having data displayed across all channels is essential for businesses, having accurate data shown is more important. Akeneo supports this with our activation solution that ensures consistent product data is syndicated to the right channels, allowing customers to receive accurate information no matter what platform they’re on, lessening the chances of them returning any products.

3 Trends for the 2024 Holiday Shopping Season

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2. Offer translated, localized product information

Localization is key when it comes to displaying product information beyond your business' region, as it’s about engaging a diverse international clientele in their specific language. By accurately modifying your product data, such as technical specifications, for different countries, you prevent customers from receiving incorrect product information which would inevitably lead to mistaken purchases and subsequent returns. For example, customers in England see prices displayed in pounds (£) when shopping online, while customers in America receive their prices in dollars ($).

Translation is another essential component when showing product information in various regions. It ensures that consumers in countries such as Italy receive an equal level of detailed, enriched product descriptions in their native language as consumers in France and Germany. The pairing of translation and localization reduces the likelihood of returns as both work together to eliminate consumers’ doubt and confusion.

3. Encourage other customers to leave reviews

Businesses can encourage consumers to demonstrate the practicality of a product through User Generated Content (UGC), allowing them to share their experience in various forms such as review boards, social media posts, blog posts, and forum discussions

UGC is valuable to consumers because it’s perceived to be authentic, genuine, and trustworthy testimonials for a product, helping consumers make informed, confident purchase decisions. When shoppers see photos, reviews, and videos from actual customers rather than from the brand itself, they often gain a more accurate and less-biased understanding of product fit, functionality, and quality, and are often able to answer key questions about sizing, color accuracy, and product features which may not be fully captured by brand descriptions alone. UGC allows prospective buyers to assess whether a product meets their expectations, reducing the chance of disappointment when the item arrives.

4. Offer hybrid experiences

In a post-covid world, people are beginning to return to in-person shopping. Consumers are eager to have in-store associate expertise whilst they’re shopping and enjoy the experience of being able to physically interact with the product. Shopping in stores reduces returns as customers don’t have to visualize how a product will look or fit, minimizing the chance of unmet expectations.

Different ways hybrid experiences manifest themselves: Though shopping locally has its perks such as avoiding shipping costs and supporting the environment, customers still crave the convenience and ease that come with online shopping. Businesses can counter this by implementing different hybrid shopping options to meet their customers halfway. For example, BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up in-Store) allows customers to purchase their products on eCommerce sites and then collect them from physical locations. ROPIS (Reserve Online, Pickup In-Store) also provides customers with the option of reserving an item before purchasing in person. It gives them the benefit of conversing with a sales associate for more information about the product and receiving guidance on how to operate it. Hybrid shopping provides consumers the comfort of shopping online whilst enabling them to enter stores.

In the absence of an omnichannel shopping experience, customers have limited ways to assess a product. The ability to browse across digital and physical channels allows them to fully evaluate their choices whilst elevating their customer experience. However Hybrid shopping is useless without consistent and reliable data displayed online and in-store. Insights from our recent survey on holiday shopping behavior show that 65% of customers research their products before finalizing their purchase. Inaccurate product data leads to discouragement which ultimately deters them from making future purchases with the brand. By offering accurate information, businesses can lower returns and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Minimizing Returns This Holiday Season

No matter how perfect a product’s photo is, or how great its description sounds, returns will inevitably continue to happen, especially around the holiday season. Consumers will always have their reasons. But their reasons don’t have to be driven by companies' mistakes.

In the rush of the holiday season, customers will expect to receive the product that they see online, and won’t stop to question whether the details they have been provided are reliable and trustworthy. By providing correct, accurate product information that is localized and personalized across various in-store and online channels, brands and retailers can elevate a customer’s journey and minimize the number of product returns.

2024 Holiday Shopping Season Guide

From omnichannel optimization to sustainability-driven purchases, discover how to maximize holiday sales and minimize the dreaded post-holiday return season.

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Venus Kamara, Content Marketing Itern

Akeneo

Giving Holiday Returns A Well-Deserved Break This Season