Do you deliberately overbuy things with the intention to return some of them?
For example: someone will buy, say, several different pairs of pants. They really only want one pair of pants. They’ll try all of them on, keep the one they like best, and then return the rest.
The key here is that they never intended to keep all of them — it was only ever about one pair.
This has come up frequently for me in conversations with others recently. Just today, a penny-pincher family member who never spends more than he has to on anything and will take weeks to make decisions about even the smallest purchases, mentioned deliberately overbuying some stuff that he’s planning on returning.
I don’t know if it’s a new trend, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or what.
I got the sense from one person I spoke to they weren’t serious about the return part, and that the “I’m going to return most of it” was a sort of intellectual safety for buying too much in the first place. But for other people it seems like it’s a legitimate practice.
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it, because it seems like a lot of mostly unnecessary hassle. It also seems like it ties up a lot of your money for no good reason, and is perhaps even risky if the store(s) find ways to deny your returns. I can additionally see this as pretty harmful for smaller businesses. It feels like there are a lot of negatives for me, so I’m having trouble seeing the appeal.
Does anyone here do it and can speak to it as a practice? I’d love to get some first-hand insight to demystify it for me.
For clothing, it is a consumer's only rational response to a lack of physical options. I refuse to commit to purchasing something that I cannot physically try on. If the company and/or the market is such that the overhead of shipping multiple back and forth is overall preferable to brick-and-mortar stores that offer similar variety/price points/whatever-thing-online-shopping-is-providing-in-this-case, so be it.
I don't often buy multiples with the intent of returning, but if I do it is clothing. The stores near me carry next to nothing in the way of sizes and, as a female, the numbers mean nothing. If pants were actual waist size instead of random numbers that sort of mean something close, it would be different. Unfortunately, I can be a size 4 at one store and a size 10 at another. It makes no sense and because of that I need to purchase multiple sizes to see what actually fits, when they don't have all sizes in the store.
Not to "um ak-shoe-ly" you but men's numbers can be similarly meaningless - I've got some pants that I bought from the same stack of pants that don't fit the same. Same measurements and one I can pull down without unbuttoning while the other I didn't even need a belt. Needless to say, I returned two of the three pairs I bought and went with the one that fit the best.
Oh, I get that there are variations in men's sizes as well. My spouse runs into it from time to time, but at least your sizing is in inches or centimeters and not an arbitrary number. US women have to deal with vanity sizing starting a 00 - which could be 25.375", 23.875", 33.25", or 42", depending on the style of jeans.
Most recently, I purchased a different style of jeans from the only store I buy jeans at. I was a 6 in the old style and am an 8 or 10 in the new style. The size guide they provide is pretty much useless - it says I should wear a 6 in the new style if I base the measurement on my waist, but an 8 if I measure hips. The 6 was too tight, and the 8 fit fine for most variations, but the 10 fit better than the 8 in others. The kicker - nowhere does it mention how those specific jeans are measured.
I think until about 10-15 years ago, men's sizes were pretty reliable, and of course they have always had rational labeling using inches, instead of a number with no connection to any part of a body. Now menswear has vanity sizing too.
I feel like Zappos encouraged this before Amazon acquired them. Sizes are so different across both brands and styles, it's impossible to know what's going to be comfortable. The only shoe like products I buy online are slippers and flip flops.
Have they changed the policies? As far as I know, they're still super flexible with a 365 day return window which is kinda crazy.
I thought it had changed more than that, guess I was off. They didn't used to carry my size, maybe it's time for a second look.
I am having trouble finding the source (I thought it was posted to tildes a while back though) but I remember watching a video about this, and yes it was pioneered by Zappos and has had a very negative impact on the amount of stuff thrown away and also price inflation
I saw a video by ClimateTown recently which had some similar themes?
Stores carry less and less sizes and focus on the ones that sell the most. If you are not that size, online is the only option. I buy several to try on, and return what does not fit. It's a hassle. It ties up my money. I have to drive to return the stuff. I don't like it but without choices in stores...shrug.
I'm a 6' tall man with a 30" inseam, my torso is longer than average. Rarely do brands list their shirt length but I have 42" chest, so I can wear a medium or large or xlarge or none since the shirt isn't long enough, who knows. Not many brands make tall shirts and even less carry them in store, so I have to buy online, get a few shirts in various sizes, return the ones that don't fit then order more shirts in the sizes that do. Pants aren't too bad, I don't mind getting pants hemmed as long as the waist is good, but shirts are another story
It’s also selfish and wasteful. Unless they’re valuable electronics most returns are trashed. You’re consuming even more carbon-positive, sweatshop-produced products than you plan to use. Free or cheap returns should be a banned practice. For competitive markets this means prices will go down as a result.
I can fully believe this is the case now that you say it, but it wouldn’t have been something I’d intuitively have expected otherwise.
It’s not something I do often, because apart from anything else it does create extra overhead for everyone involved and I’d rather avoid that if possible, but I have done it on occasion.
It’ll be clothing I can’t find in person (as @F13 put it, it seems the rational course of action if I can’t try on before buying), or something that’s time sensitive enough that I’ll order backups because I don’t trust the suppliers/delivery services, but in both cases I’d just kind of assumed things would go back into circulation. If it’s the latter the items will be going back untouched and still shrink wrapped, and if it’s the former it seems equivalent to trying on at a bricks and mortar retailer.
I’ve actually seen ad campaigns from ASOS branding their free returns as “try before you buy” (in conjunction with Klarna, so that’s it’s own whole can of worms), which I hope means that at least some companies have decided it’s more profitable to lean into it and have a few extra warehouse workers handling returns properly, but it’s a good reminder not to take it for a given.
It definitely doesn't go back into circulation. Labor and handling costs are a significant portion of the price of items that are less that $50 or so, so retailers are losing money on inspecting and repackaging versus just junking it, or just selling the items as is in bulk to specialized resellers that will just sell giant boxes of junk to people for pennies on the dollar. Most of it just goes straight into landfills though.
It's really wasteful and sad, even if it does make economic sense. As our economies become more and more optimized to take advantage of economies of scale to produce goods more cheaply, waste will continue to increase, because those processes can't be well equipped to respond to edge cases like returns.
Having worked in an ASOS distribution centre we get paid like shit and even then it's far cheaper to not bother with any sort of recirculation or reintegration of returned goods.
That’s really disappointing, as is what @papasquat said, but I suppose it’s at least good to have more awareness of just how wasteful the logistics of this all is.
100% agree. Adam Conover recently did a video monologue on this subject, and it only hardened my resolve to stop contributing to all the waste.
It's a difficult problem to crack though. I used to work for a large retailer, and they didn't like the fact that returns muddied up the income stream. Actual profit calculations often had to be time delayed because the raw sales were not an accurate measure due to all the returns and waste. So I think if consumer sentiment were to suddenly turn away from returns companies would jump at the opportunity, but at present they are unwilling to upset the status quo. Perhaps offering product discounts with the catch of no returns would work. I haven't given it a lot of thought though, since I'm no longer in that space. I just do my part to avoid buying things I know I'll have to return. For the most part that just means I can't buy clothes online unless it's something I absolutely know will fit.
I don't do it. I feel guilty about returns, because I know it essentially destroys value for the storefront (rarely can such items be sold as "new" again). It also seems like a system that when abused, will create more scrutiny on consumers and make it harder to process legitimate returns.
I have returned items when I've been dissatisfied with their quality (eg. a collectable book that was dented), or clothes that truly don't fit well. But I make every effort to not do so, and to research something well enough to make sure it's the right item before I buy it.
Sometimes though, it's just out of your hands. For example, I ordered six jars of salsa a few years ago. Huge fan of Mrs. Renfro's! Unfortunately, two jars were smashed during shipment. It made a real mess. That's ghost pepper salsa - this was a biohazard containment moment.
Thankfully, Amazon offered to replace the order, though I just asked for a refund for the two jars that were broken. The rest I could clean off with some soap and water, and they were still perfectly usable. I don't know if that makes me a "sucker", but it just seemed more fair to me.
Rarely is an understatement. I'm sure there are exceptions, but you can easily make the case that for all well known retailers this is not rarely, but never resold as new. The vast majority ends up in landfills or burned. Returned clothing is generally just thrown out permanently.
Maybe most reputable retailers. Plenty of horror stories of Amazon reselling returns as "new" and without a cursory check. Including used reusable diapers.
Amazon Sold a Used Diaper. It Tanked a Mom-and-Pop Business
Companies get so damn confused when I try to reject/undo actions by them that would unfairly benefit me. They often don't have the appropriate processes in place so I end up getting calls from people asking me to explain what exactly is wrong again? or someone in the communication chain assumes I'm fishing for even more refunds and returns. I've ended up with free stuff due to simple exhaustion/the belief that they would never understand what was going on.
It's weird because when they did mess up and I'm trying to get them to acknowledge it in the first place, it's much harder. Still haven't forgiven amazon for sending me a clearly very used, extremely noisy, (illegally) plugged in APC UPS and then treating me like a criminal when I asked for a replacement.
This is how I shop at Home Depot lol. It's gotten to the point where I'd rather buy more things that might fit what I need for home repairs/improvement than have to go back to the hardware store multiple times in the same day for anything I forgot.
I don't do this for online purchases though, I would feel bad about the waste in shipping. I still prefer to go buy things, especially clothing, at brick & mortar shops. Online is my last resort.
I do this as well because I live pretty far from stores. However I know that 99% of the things will go back on the shelf. I don't open anything unless I am sure it will work. I do open things carefully in case it doesn't work. The box stores are pretty good about checking the stuff out and getting back on the shelf if it looks good.
I’m pretty sure this is baked into Home Depot’s business model. It’s nearly impossible to buy the exact amount of material needed for any home reno project. I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in that I would feel more discouraged to even think about some projects if I thought returning unused material would be a hassle. HD gets more business because customers are encouraged by the return policy (data free, speculative statement).
Home Depot also restocks nearly all returns, aside from broken or damaged returns, so it’s not as wasteful as examples from other retailers in this thread.
I was thinking that I never do this, but then I remembered home Depot. I absolutely detest going back four times in a day because I mismeasured something, counted wrong, or didn't properly account for fucking something up.
The way I figure, most of the stuff I overpurchase at home Depot will just be restocked (I don't think there's such a thing as a "used bolt"), and I'm being less wasteful than putting an extra 50 miles on my car because I'm an idiot who is bad at planning with poor spatial memory.
I did this recently with my local hardware store: we were sorting out a plumbing issue and just wasn't sure how many elbows / straight / coupling / whatever we will end up actually needing. The staff was like, eh, here's a big format receipt just bring back what you didn't need.
Hardware feels okay because they're easy to restock and re-use. (eg I know they're not getting thrown away)
I don't. I'm pretty sure this practice leads to a ton of waste. It's often cheaper for companies to simply destroy or throwaway returns than actually restock the item.
My wife does with jeans. She knows her size with a specific brand, but rarely do they carry the colour and fit in store near us so she orders online. However, they have terrible quality control, and she has learned that there is a 50% chance that the jeans will have a twisted seam or some other defect. So she has started ordering two pairs at a time so that she can get at least one pair without defect, and the defective pair she can return to the store in person. If both pairs end up not being defective, she would probably keep both, but that hasn't happened yet.
Out of curiosity, what brand is she ordering from that has such poor quality control?
American Eagle. Not sure if she has had bad luck recently since she has only started doing it recently or not. I buy my jeans from there as well and either the men's jeans have less problems, I tend to not notice the issues, or she has had bad luck with a few pairs.
I've found some of their bras are great, but I have noticed everything else is very hit-and-miss. I guess that makes sense for the price points with most of their clothes. Their bras seem to be the exception as they keep certain lines in stock forever which is pretty unusual in these days of fast fashion.
I have never done this, it just feels too wasteful to justify it. I will of course return things if they do not fit (shoes are probably the riskiest here for me), but the idea of buying multiple with the intent to return one rubs me the wrong way. I'm not throwing shade at others for doing so if you feel the need, but I definitely don't like it.
Yes but extremely rarely. I only remember doing it twice recently. The first time was on black friday weekend in 2023, I knew I wanted a pair of blutetooth earbuds and I knew I'd need to try 4 or 5 pairs but also the sale only lasted 1 week (and buying that on sale would potentially save a lot of money depending which pair I decided on ultimately). So I bought maybe 5 pairs and returned all but one of them (and then bought a 2nd identical pair so I could switch out when the battery died). This turned out to be an excellent decision too because I was not perfectly happy with ANY of them, and the pair I ended up keeping, I very well may have returned because it was not perfect, it was just the best out of all of them.
The 2nd time was more recent, I needed a pair of ballet shoes that week and I wasn't sure what size I was. So I bought 2 pairs with the intention of returning one of them after trying them on (with very thin socks).
In both cases, I had a strict time constraint and that was the reason for my choice to overbuy & return.
About a year ago I decided most of my pants were looking a little sad and must have shrunk during covid (I definitely didn’t gain weight over that time, nope not me, not at all /s) so I went and tried on some pants at a local store. Found some I loved and scoured the shelves to get as many in that style and size as possible (it was at the end of the “season” so I think it was only three pairs)
When I got home, I decided I actually liked them enough to replace my whole wardrobe with them, but the physical store was out of that size, so I ordered another 5 online, for a total of 8, except despite being the exact same size and colour and style and barcode from the exact same store, there were obviously differences in what I tried on versus what I ordered online — for one thing, the belt loops that I got in-store have a double loop at the back, but the online ones only had a single loop instead.
When I realised I had been bamboozled, I checked the returns policy (change of mind refund in-store if original tags and receipt within reasonable time frame) and ordered another 15 online, picked the only ones that actually fit, and returned the rest. I initially got a weird look from the cashier in store, but when I explained that I’d gone through all this effort just to find pairs that actually fit (the ones I kept, they’re still not identical but close enough) she was like “oh hey that’s actually pretty smart” and she clearly knew the sizes printed on the label were guidelines more than actual sizes
I think after all this, it’s clear that this store didn’t spend any time or effort on quality control, so I don’t think I’ll go back to them again, but I’m not sure what to do now because even a store that charges 10x the price still doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality and consistency???
I try to avoid it. For things like jeans I either buy from known-fitting brands online or shop the (admittedly more limited) selection available in person. There’s been a few times when some electronics/PC-related purchase hasn’t worked out as planned, but in that situation I keep the item because they usually prove useful at some point later and save me from having to order something then.
The only time in recent memory I returned something was a gaming laptop which was a pain to keep performing as advertised which is difficult to excuse for an item with a price tag in excess of US$2k. I still occasionally feel a pang of guilt over that one though.
never. i never buy something unless im totally sure i want it and for things like clothes i only buy in person. i still have a hard time comprehending how common it is
I don't really buy clothes online and when I do I'll just buy what I think is my size and it usually works out. My wife buys a lot of clothes online and even she doesn't order more than one size at a time.
I don't understand why you would overbuy -- clearly there is a return policy so just order one size and return it if it doesn't fit. I find anything else to be extremely wasteful because as people said; it all just gets trashed.
When I have it's from stores that also have physical locations, the ordered clothes that were tried on just go on the discount rack (or I suppose the regular one, but I'm usually ordering sizes they don't carry).
But there are subscription boxes of clothing where that's the whole model, and Amazon has offered that model up for years for clothing in particular.
I don't do it for anything else and I don't order clothes often either so I feel ok doing it in that situation (oh and I'm not usually over ordering, just returning what doesn't fit, so maybe this doesn't apply, sorry if this wasn't helpful. )
Yeah I have done this. Specially for two types of purchases.
For bras from Amazon. Bra sizing is something you have to get right and several years ago when I was upgrading to nicer companies the easiest way to do this was to buy a lot of styles with +1 size up and down from my expected size to try on. It’s Amazon, but I am fairly certain these are not trashed after as one of the items I tried on accidentally still had someone else’s band attachment on it.
General clothes from Stitch Fix. Their whole model is centered around them mailing you clothes and you sending back what you don’t want as a subscription service. But they also have a store where you can basically order extra stuff and then return what doesn’t fit right or what you don’t like. When I changed jobs and needed a whole new work wardrobe I ordered a TON of clothes to test out and kept about half of them, maybe less. It’s honestly not a hassle and saves time compared to physically going to a mall and looking for clothes.
I do this, but not often. Shoes and jeans are the two products that I do this for. Shoes especially since it really depends on the brand what sizes are like. And a brand like Adidas often has a shoe that’s sold exclusively through an online store that hasn’t got a physical location.
It saves a lot of time not having to visit multiple stores with varying inventory. I just don’t want to back to a whole day of strolling through a city trying to find nice shoes.
I have in the past when I was low on money and was looking for cheap clothes. At one point Amazon actually had a program specifically to let people do this with clothing where you would only have to pay after you decided which articles you were keeping.
So the thing about being fat, is that extended size clothing universally lies to you. Really all sizes are meaningless lies, but big and tall is straight out delusion. You might be able to find a 3XL in a mainstream article of clothing, but if you compare it to a 3XL big and tall, the latter will be roughly 1.5-2x as large.
This lead to me buying 4-6 pairs of jeans on Amazon and if I was lucky one would fit. This is regardless of the data Amazon provided about how accurate people thought the fit was.
I actually did find a single pair of pants that I could reliably buy that fit properly but the material on it was poor quality in spite of the good brand on them and the inner legs would split, not even on the seam.
So I gave up on online clothes shopping altogether, even before I found out about how terribly wasteful the process was. I just went to stores that had my sizes and paid 3-4x as much. It ended up being worth it.
I usually figure out my size per brand, then literally just buy the same thing for decades when I need more until I can't anymore. For example, I keep buying the exact same Under Armour boxer briefs now that I know the right size and length, and the same brand/model of shorts just in different colors.
For shoes it's one exact model of Puma/Onitsukas/Boots, until they stop making it. I think I went through 3-4 pairs of Puma Turins over a ~6 year period or soemthing.
Sometimes I fuck up and buy the wrong thing, and it just sits in the closet.
I think clothing is not a perfect examples, since online clothing/jewelery stores usually offer a fitting option, where you can try the thing on before accepting the delivery and paying for it
I've only ever done so once, mainly because I couldn't try out the product beforehand and was skeptical if it was right for me. It was a pair of Focal Bathys headphones and I ended up returning them because my head was too big.
In general, I try minimize the returns I need to do. If possible, I'll try out the products in a store and see if I like them. This is a bit hard now with online shopping for clothes but still possible.
I've done this maybe twice, only with shoes because a suitable fit is far more complicated than other clothes. Sizing has some variation, too (I think more now than 15+ years ago). I usually narrow it down to 2 choices and return one.
With the intention of returning, almost never. I will admit I have, for example, purchased bedsheets when mine were accidentally left a few states over in a move, and then returned them when ours were retrieved. I justified it to myself as... We needed bedsheets, there is no such thing as renting bedsheets, and after the fact the options were basically a) we keep the sheets, we are out $60, and they rot in the closet because we'll never use them again or b) Walmart is out $60, and they rot in the landfill because we'll never use them again.
That being said, there are times when I will buy something I'm not sure I need, or my wife will like, or will work for our situation, knowing that if it doesn't it can be returned. For example there was a table on sale at Costco, and we needed a table for a party we were throwing. I bought it with the mindset that if we liked it, we would keep it, if we didn't like it, we would use it for the party and then return it. We ended up keeping it because it was a well-designed and useful table.
Another example is some leggings that went on clearance for a set of two for $5. They didn't have my wife's size but I bought the next size up knowing she could try them on and we could keep them, or return them based on the fit. But if I didn't buy them then, we would have had to spend four times as much later for something else.
Basically I guess my philosophy is I'll never intentionally waste, but I am also forced to exist within the rules set by a society I am a part of. So you gotta make do with what you have.