Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news in the morning of March 28, Beijing time, Amazon's free and convenient return policy is reported to be a major advantage of Amazon, but the platform recently began to display Frequently Returned Items tags on some product pages, highlighting that the company is trying to reduce consumer returns.

It is reported that the increase in the number of returns is not a problem only for Amazon e-commerce. During the epidemic, the US e-commerce market was hot, and newcomers joined in online shopping, but the number of consumer returns also increased greatly, greatly driving up the operating costs of the major platforms.

For a long time, Amazon has provided a very loose return policy. Within 30 days of purchase, consumers can return purchased but unused goods, and they can even return them directly to Amazon's American whole Foods store.

Amazon's free return and exchange policy has gradually become a standard service in the U. S. e-commerce industry, but for the platform, the cost of free return is increasing. During the outbreak, the return of ecommerce platforms increased sharply, leading some Amazon competitors to tighten their free return policy to control the cost of transporting returned goods and subsequent processing.

Some third-party sellers at Amazon's online store said that compared with other e-commerce platforms, Amazon consumers are easier to return and "low cost" to return goods.

The cost of Amazon's free return is likely to continue to rise in the future. Earlier, Amazon has begun to charge third-party sellers a disposal fee for returned goods that cannot be re-sold, and earlier this year, Amazon again raised the order delivery fee charged to third-party sellers (for products delivered by the platform).

A big background in showing consumers a warning about the return rate this time is that Amazon is facing a significant decline in e-commerce sales and has to rein in costs and make large-scale layoffs.

Items with a "high return rate" include some video recorders and clothing, which are sold by third-party sellers and delivered by Amazon. In addition, in terms of consumer evaluation, these products have received a four-star rating (the highest is five stars).

Amazon spokesman Betsy Harden said the move is to help consumers make decisions about whether to buy or not in the context of more information.

Amazon recently began to provide more product data to consumers, and the return rate is the latest example. For example, the platform recently began to display sales data for some popular products.

For third-party sellers, Amazon's return rate label may have some impact, such as why some items are returned more seriously, and take some measures to reduce the return rate.

Previously, Amazon did not release information on the number of goods returned each year, but the return rate doubled to 18% in 2020 from the previous year, according to the American Retail Foundation. In 2022, the ecommerce return rate fell slightly to 16.5%, but it is still higher than it was before the epidemic.

It is reported that e-commerce platforms, including Himm and Zara, have recently begun a new attempt to return goods, that is, requiring consumers to pay return freight. In addition, Amazon and other large e-commerce platforms have also introduced a new policy that if consumers return goods that are cheaper or the freight is too high, consumers do not have to send them back after they get a refund.

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