In an OMG moment, ASOS have just revealed that some of their customers are returning in excess of 70% of the value of their total purchases. Yep, they’ll spend £1000 over the course of a year and return over £700 worth of these purchases.
That’s a serious cost of serving these customers and ASOS have (quite naturally) had enough. And this might impact you also, because ASOS is also a marketplace with third party sellers on their platform.
ASOS have already controversially banned some of their top serial returners, and instituted a fee of £3.95 to those that return the most. Now, they’re implementing a 70% rule.
The 70% rule means that if your historical returns exceed 70% of your total purchases, then you won’t have to pay the £3.95 returns fee if you return less than £40 worth of items from any single order. This is really a tweak to give some latitude for frequent returners who actually keep the majority of what they purchase.
ASOS gives the example of a £100 order including a t-shirt retailing for £30 and a pair of jeans retailing for £70. The return will be free if only the t-shirt is returned. A returns fee of £3.95 will apply if the consumer returns the jeans or both the t-shirt and jeans.
Most ASOS customers logging into the app will see that their returns rate is within the expected range and will still receive free returns… but I’m still gobsmacked that some shoppers really do return more than 70% by value of everything they purchase and they’re the people this policy change is aimed at.
