Free Return Policy Could Attract More Buyers
The holidays are coming, and that means if you are a seller then you are likely to be busy. There are many buyers preparing to look around for good deals as well. Both Black Friday and the holidays are a time when people would be looking for things to buy. One good deal that sellers could and perhaps should implement is a free return policy.
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Sellers dread when a buyer returns an item. However, buyers do return an item for a number of reasons. Some buyers made a mistake in buying the product. Or else the product didn’t fit in. These mistakes do happen.
It’s not necessarily that a customer returns a product because he didn’t like it. It is understandable though when sellers have a dreaded feeling whenever a product is returned.
Offer free returns to remove a buyers barrier
A free return policy though can be seen as an added customer service. People who are returning a product are reluctant to do so because they might have to incur additional charges.
For many, that is just another burden aside from sending the product back itself. However, a free return policy shows to consumers that a business is confident in itself and that a returned product is not necessarily an indictment of the business.
The most obvious effect of a free return policy is that it makes the customer experience more pleasant.
That should be the ultimate goal.
Customers appreciate it when a company is willing to take in a returned product at no additional cost, and then replace it with the right one. This shows confidence on the company’s part, and in turn customers have more confidence with that company.
A free return policy should also be simple and clear. There should be no jargon that customers can’t understand or no fine print that might surprise them.
It should be straightforward, so as to avoid any complications later on. Another added service to this is that there should be a tracking option for it, so that customers would know how the transaction is doing and that they would get the right product.
With this policy, companies will have more customer loyalty and be seen by customers to be a reliable company that could be trusted.
It may not be an attractive thing for sellers to bring in, however Amazon is setting the standards and expectations are changing for this to become the norm.
Do you think that the free return policy is a good one, especially this holiday season? Tell us what you think about it in the comment section below.
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Dave Furness
Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.
Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.