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Researchers want to reduce returns in online retail
Despite great efforts to reduce the number of returns, online retail is struggling with high returns costs. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
The jeans are too short, the shirt doesn’t fit properly: returns in online retail are annoying for consumers, bad for the environment and costly for companies. A new tool could help.
The approach: Products can be tried on virtually on the computer, as project manager Christian Groth from the Institute for Information Systems at the Upper Franconian university said. The goal: Customers should be able to make as precise a pre-selection as possible in terms of fit, size and taste – almost like in the changing room in the store. “The only thing that cannot be represented here is the tactile experience of the material or the feeling of wearing it.”
“You can see if the sleeves are too long”
The demonstrator uses the customer’s current camera image as well as images of the items in different poses. “This makes it possible to virtually adapt a photorealistic and size-correct representation of the selected item of clothing to the customer,” said Groth. With current computer models that represent clothing to be ordered for people, the textiles always fit perfectly – and there is great disappointment when the package arrives. With the demonstrator from Hof, however, things are more precise: “You can see whether the sleeves are too long, for example.” The customer only has to specify their overall body size in addition to the photo, “the rest is calculated,” Groth continued. The university wants to publish its tool as open source software and hopes to primarily support small and medium-sized companies.
There are great efforts in online retail to reduce the number of returns because returns incur high costs. According to a study published in December by the retail research institute EHI, retailers have to spend an average of between five and ten euros for each returned item.
Almost half of the clothing ordered is returned
According to EHI, the rates for returns are on average between six and ten percent, and for fashion products even 26 to 50 percent. But even for consumers it is only at first glance convenient to have their clothes delivered to their home. If it doesn’t fit or you don’t like it, jeans etc. have to be repackaged, a return slip drawn up and the package taken back to the parcel service provider. In addition, some retailers now charge money for returns.
Returns in the textile sector are so common, among other things, because customers often order the goods they want in two sizes so that one actually fits, said Marco Atzberger, member of the EHI management team. To prevent this, there are currently two options: Retailers are keen to describe the goods as precisely as possible, for example by indicating whether the item of clothing is large or small. Another variant is to virtually measure the customer. But Atzberger sees a hurdle here – namely consumer acceptance of making this data available.
Hof University EHI on returns