Where does your returned order actually go?

Where does your returned order actually go?

Sale starts this week.

You order the same shirt in three sizes, because why not, returns are free.

One fits. Two go back.

You tap return, a guy picks them up, and your refund lands in three days.

Clean. Free. Over.

Bhai, nothing about that was free.

Industry reports say fashion returns in India run anywhere between 25% and 40% of orders.

In some categories it's higher.

So picture every fourth to every third thing sold online coming right back.

Now where does it actually go?

Not back on the shelf, most of the time.

The journey is called reverse logistics Reverse logistics = the entire system that brings a product back from you to the seller.

Pickup, transport, warehouse, open the packet, check it, grade it, repack it, re-list it.

Logistics data suggests a return costs the seller roughly 1.5 to 2 times what it cost to ship it to you in the first place.

And one report puts the cost of processing a single return at up to 65% of what the item is worth.

Here's the part that will change how you see that free return button.

Reports suggest only about half of returned items get sold again at full price.

The rest get discounted, liquidated, donated or written off Liquidation = selling leftover and returned stock in bulk, cheap, to whoever will take it.

There is an entire market in India for this.

People buy return lots by the box, sealed, unseen, and resell them in shops and on Instagram.

So that shirt you returned last Diwali?

Somebody else may have bought it from a liquidation lot for ₹200.

Ek aur baat.

Sellers report another leak called wardrobing.

One outfit, one wedding, one reel, then returned with the tag carefully put back.

Industry estimates put return fraud and abuse at 8% to 15% of monthly revenue for Indian sellers.

The Brutal Reality:

A seller cannot absorb all of this and stay alive.

So it goes where every business cost goes. Into the price.

The price you see on sale day already has the returns baked into it Cost pass-through = when a business quietly adds its losses into the price everyone pays.

Which means the person who orders one size and keeps it is paying for the person who orders four.

Free returns were never free.

They were just billed to everyone, quietly, in advance.

✍🏻 Mantra Joshi

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