According to a representative survey by the digital association Bitkom, every tenth online purchase in Germany is returned. The most common reasons for this: You don’t like the goods or the product is faulty. Bitkom summarized the results of the survey among 1024 online buyers, but many customers also factored in the returns from the outset.
After all, a good third (37 percent) of people who returned goods that had already been ordered online stated that they had intentionally ordered more than they actually needed – for example clothes in different sizes.
“In terms of sustainability, we have to avoid returns as much as possible,” said Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder. Digital solutions such as virtual fittings, data-based size advice and all-round views of the products could help. “This not only means higher customer satisfaction and lower costs for retailers, but also less resource consumption in logistics.”
A quarter retain online purchases
According to the survey, women return a larger proportion of their online orders than men (8 percent), at an average of 12 percent. At 13 percent, 16 to 29-year-olds also return an above-average number of their online purchases. The group of over 60-year-olds, on the other hand, sends the fewest goods back to the sender at 7 percent. A quarter of online shoppers (26 percent) say they have never returned anything.
