#Haul content is everywhere online, but this content trend can adversely affect online retailers. Data Executive at Visualsoft, Jen Pollard, takes us through how to stop hauls holding back your sales.

We’ve all seen them online, on social media, Influencers showing off their latest “haul”, asking for opinions on what to keep and what to return. In the run down to the festive period, this is likely a retailer's nightmare. Huge orders to pack and send, large volumes of returns to deal with while there’s constantly new stock arriving to try to meet other consumer demands.

Figures from Retail Economics suggest that these so-called “Serial Returners” account for around a quarter of all online returns made every year in the UK. The rise of the hashtag #KeepOrReturn is also fuelling this trend as people show off their “hauls” on social media (TikTok or Instagram are the typical favourites) and ask viewers to comment on whether they should (as the hashtag suggests) keep an item or return it.

Another popular hashtag #haul, appears in 16.5million posts on TikTok and 3.6million posts on Instagram, and creators can be paid up to £10,000 for a post. Most do start out with accepting free items in exchange for a sponsored post, but the more successful you get the better the payouts can be.

More than 11 million videos have been posted on TikTok with the hashtag, and more than two thirds of Gen Z shoppers admit to deliberately over-ordering clothes online with the intention of returning some, most or all of the order. Some are frequently getting items delivered to their homes in multiple sizes and colours to see which they like, before sending back the majority of their orders. 

To put some numbers against this, a successful “haul” poster in the US (Amber Scholl) posts 20 minute videos showing their haul, and can get up to 710,000 views, and has over 3.5million subscribers to their channel. This shows this type of video is exceedingly popular, but is quite an extreme example of it.

Online returns are forecast to exceed £27bn this year. Serial returners are estimated to account for £6.6bn of the total, according to Retail Economics. On average, each “serial returner” is sending back £1,400 worth of goods each year. Surveys have found that 69% of Gen Z over-order on sizes or colours, or both, then return unwanted items. This compares to just 16% of baby boomers.

This of course eats into profitability in many ways, from covering the cost of returns, to having to up staff to deal with returns, and of course extra storage to deal with items prior to processing.

In response to this, big companies like Asos, Superdry, H&M, Zara, and Boohoo all now charge for online returns (sometimes offer free returns in stores) to try to help mitigate the problems caused by serial returners.

So what can retails try to do to help deal with these new trends?

Charge for returns

While this doesn’t put everyone off, it does help some people become more considerate in their shopping. It can also push people to retail stores to try on before buying, meaning the right items are bought first time, rather than multiple bought, one or two kept and the rest returned which can end up in landfill due to reverse logistic problems.

Robust returns policy

Ensuring a returns policy is robust and fit for purpose is the starting point. Does it give clear guidelines to customers over processing time, costs and still meet their expectations? Having areas ready to deal with returns and staff trained in how to process them is likely a good starting point, to ensure a swift and efficient process to deal with the volume being returned.

Warehousing, storage and staffing

Having dedicated areas and staff dealing with returns, making sure that the stock is turned around fast ready to resell, rather than being stored up in valuable warehouse space can help keep products moving. Getting them back into inventory means they’re ready to sell again, rather than missing the period shoppers are interested in them in.

Detailed sizing and “fit” type information

Incorrect fit is a reason high on the list of returns reasons. With the shift from purchasing from brick and mortar stores, this is one that will plague clothing and footwear retailers as items cannot be tried on before they’re bought. Despite best efforts, items will likely suffer from this, which has seen a rise in consumers purchasing multiple sizes/colours/styles and returning the ones they don’t like. However, providing detailed information on sizing and fit style (take jeans for example, are they skinny, flared, bootcut, relaxed, boyfriend cut etc) can help people decide if the item is right for them.

Customer validation

Asking customers to review items and rewarding them for doing so gives credibility to items. Having them detail the fit, the style, the sizing (is it true to size) all help provide future shoppers with information about how an item is going to fit and whether it is right for them. Rewarding customers (points, store credit etc) incentivises them to provide their opinions on items, and you can always act on the feedback. Are items not true to size? Suggest people may want to look a size bigger/smaller on the item description to get a better fit.

Jen Pollard is Data Analyst at Visualsoft.