(Yicai) Nov. 15 -- Chinese online vendors of women’s attire are struggling as the frequency of returns climbs steadily to an average of 80 percent due to problems with quality, the convenience of no-charge returns, cut-throat pricing, and other factors, industry insiders said. 

Around 80 percent of women’s garments are now being returned to the vendor on e-commerce platforms and the rate has even reached 90 percent at some stores, the founder of a women’s clothing shop on Alibaba Group Holding’s e-marketplace Taobao, told Yicai. 

“I used to have a return rate of around 20 percent, but from 2022 this started to climb and is now at around 70 percent. This has led to a substantial increase in packaging and transport costs,” she said. 

The operator of Seventh Uncle's Women Garment Supply Chain, which is an e-shop on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, that mostly supplies goods to live streamers, said that the rate of returns for his wholesale customers has jumped to between 75 and 80 percent this year from 60 percent last year. 

“One of my wholesale clients sold clothing worth around CNY100 million (USD13.8 million) one year, but since a huge number of garments were eventually returned, his net gross merchandise volume was reduced to just CNY20 million (USD2.8 million),” he said. 

The main reasons for customers to return their purchases are due to ill-fitting clothes, and clothing that does not match the photos on the website. 

And because transport fee insurance is provided by many platforms to encourage shopping, customers do not need to pay extra to return the goods. This leads to the questionable habit of people buying clothing impulsively without researching them properly. 

One lady told Yicai that she buys garments freely on e-commerce platforms and usually returns most of them, knowing that she does not need to pay to send the goods back to the sellers. 

The high return rate also has to do with the price comparison systems that e-retailers offer, the Douyin vendor said. After people place their orders, the system automatically lists similar products, often at lower prices, prompting many customers to change their minds and to return the goods they have already received.  

When the return rate increases, merchants have to lower their costs and this leads to an inevitable drop in product quality, which in turn generates more customer dissatisfaction and more returns. 

The high return rate is hiking merchants’ expenses and is also giving customers a poorer shopping experience, said Mo Daqing, head of the online retail department and senior analyst at e-commerce research center 100ec. 

Supply already outstrips demand in this sector, and some players will be kicked out, said the Douyin vendor. 

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor