Just ordered 3 pairs of Northwave shoes from Wiggle – not normally my thing but I used to really like their hike-a-bike shoes and fancied returning back to them after a couple of years on Gaerne. Having decided that’s what I was after I struggled to find bricks and motor stockists and frankly without Wiggle I’d still be fannying around. As it happens I’m keeping a pair and two are going back at no cost to me. I expect more progressive retailer will just regard this as the cost of doing business.

There can also be the advantage that ordering two sizes makes postage paid, with free returns for either one or both.

I never really order anything online, except:

Turns out nowhere in Bristol stocks FiveTen shoes. I hate buying shoes at the best of times as I have wide feet that make it hard to find a good fit, but especially when I feel I have to go online (or take the train to Exeter or something) to get a product online. So I buys a couple of pairs on CRC and neither of them is right. Dammit, they’ll both be going back!

I think the only thing I’ve bought online that needs returning is a couple of tee shirts, basically because the illustration on the front is an iron-on or heat transfer, and not screen printed, which is what I was expecting; the last tee I bought with a heat transfer image was at a Led Zeppelin gig at Earle’s Court back in the 70’s…
There have been a couple of items that have been faulty, but I’ve been sent a replacement with no need to return the faulty original.
Bought loads of stuff over the years that’s been absolutely fine, including boots and shoes, I just make certain that the size is correct, same goes for jeans, I tried a pair of Uniqlo denims in one of their London stores before ordering any of their selvedge denims; good thing I did, too.

I hate the idea that it’s mandatory to accept returns that are not duff. Nice if you want to offer that facility but to impose that is wrong.

Not accepting returns would be the death of Internet shopping IMHO. Why would you buy, say, a pair of shoes online if you couldn’t send them back if they didn’t fit? (Also, if you can’t send stuff back it opens the door to shysters who will sell any old shit and not care). The whole point is that it’s to empower you to buy things unseen.

As for costs to the business, well, they’ve not got the overhead of running a branch day-in, day-out when there might not be a single customer. The hit they take on returns surely can’t be higher than employing a shopful of staff in an empty shop?