Just been reading an online article.
Ever wondered what happens to the online shopping items you return? It's not a pretty picture (msn.c...
It talks about the rise of a type of shopping they call 'bracketing' where people order the same item of clothing (or shoes I guess) in multiple sizes and then return those that don't fit.
This is a no brainer for shoppers if they are promised free postal returns for change of mind, it's predictable behaviour. The minute you make a consumer pay towards the cost of a change of mind return, you'd be cutting down that behaviour by at least half, I'd guess.
The article had this to say:
There's definitely a returns culture," Nobody Denim's marketing manager Lara Cooper says.
"There's been a lot of talk about circularity and sustainability in fashion as a whole, but I do think that issue on waste and packaging has been overlooked a little bit."
It's not a brand new problem for the industry.
Even before online shopping, returns were a problem for retail stores, and there was an environmental and business toll from that too.
Yet the consumer had to try on items before buying, which reduced behaviour like bracketing.
With online shopping, when items are posted, they are also often wrapped in plastic.
Then there are postal bags, swing tags, and the less measurable environmental expense of sending items all around the country and back again.
Luxury brands especially can curate entire packaging regimes for products that include gift cards, layers of wrapping and embossed boxes.
It's ironic, isn't it, when on the one hand we have a lot of shops that have banned free plastic shopping bags, we have bread makers who are 'changing over' to stopping the use of plastic tags and we all talk about recycling, yet some people think nothing of the waste of resources that go into returning a product.
Not just our postal service but the physical time taken by employees to get a returned item ready again for sale, refolding 'as new' etc
And fast fashion-how responsible is that, environmentally?
Just thought it's something to think about during the Boxing Day sales.😁
