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| 12% of online purchases unwanted |
Soaring sales from online shopping does have a downside, as many seeking to return unwanted goods have found.Online sales nearly topped £50bn for 2009 are likely to be exceeded with the IMRG Capgemini e-retail sales index showing online sales up 14 per cent for the year to May, with May alone showing a 22 per cent increase compared with May 2009.
But a survey has found that the more we shop online the more we are out of pocket by failing to return items we don’t want. The survey of 2,000 online shoppers found that 12 per cent found themselves out of pocket for failing to return items they didn’t want. Also, 53 per cent of online shoppers fail to check on the returns policy and so are unaware of how to return broken, unwanted or defective goods, or that they have a choice of returns options.
The end result is that a fifth of unwanted goods are dumped at the local charity shop or thrown away!Mark Lewis, managing director of Collect+ the delivery company who sponsored the survey, says: “The hassle and cost of online returns has been the dark secret of retail for too long, with our research showing that shoppers are abandoning outlets that fail to get it right. Modern shoppers are demanding returns processes that match their lifestyles and will no longer tolerate queuing at their local post office to return defective or unwanted goods.”
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