With UK ecommerce returns costing retailers an estimated £60 billion each year, the perennial challenge of handling returns – from reverse logistics and remerchandising returned items for resale to protecting customer experience and loyalty – has long been a thorn in retailers’ sides. In attempts to stem returns volumes and minimise the financial impact of reverse logistics, brands have experimented with a growing range of deterrents, including fees, shorter windows, stricter policies and even account suspensions.
But the economics of returns are changing – and so too are shopper behaviours and expectations, says Piotr Zaleski, Founder & CPTO at Ingrid. What may once have deterred returners no longer carries the same weight, particularly among younger consumers who increasingly see returns as an embedded part of ecommerce rather than an exception to it.
Gen Z becomes retail’s biggest cohort of serial returners
Research in our latest Delivery Economics Report shows just how swiftly the returns landscape has shifted, with younger cohorts of shoppers driving this change. Far from returning less, our poll shows that now more than half of Gen Z shoppers identify as serial returners, up from just 15% three years ago.
At the same time that the number of frequent returners is rising, retailers’ strategies to discourage inefficient returns are also having less impact as consumers increasingly regard returns as a natural part of online shopping. Nearly two fifths of shoppers we surveyed said that traditional returns deterrents, such as fees, no longer influence their behaviour, highlighting how returns are viewed as a standard process within ecommerce experiences rather than a friction point.
And the direction of travel is only set to accelerate further as regulation increasingly reinforces consumers’ expectations around frictionless post-purchase experiences. From June 2026, new EU ‘withdrawal button’ legislation will require retailers selling into the EU to make cancelling online purchases as easy as placing them, placing even greater pressure on brands to modernise how they manage returns and reverse logistics.
These shifts signal something much bigger than rising return volumes, new regulatory requirements or consumers becoming desensitised to returns deterrents. They suggest the industry is still trying to tackle returns with outdated models that no longer reflect how consumers actually shop.
Moving beyond blanket returns rules
For many retailers, returns policies are still built around blanket rules applied with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach across their entire customer base. But this assumes that all shoppers behave the same way, create the same level of value or generate the same operational costs.
Retail has already embraced personalisation almost everywhere else in the customer journey. Pricing, loyalty schemes, product recommendations and marketing are all tailored based on customer behaviour and value. Yet when it comes to returns, most brands still rely on static policies that treat loyal, low-risk shoppers exactly the same as habitual serial returners.
The challenge for retailers is that returns now sit at the intersection of customer experience, profitability and operational efficiency. Consumers expect convenience and flexibility, but retailers are simultaneously dealing with margin pressure, rising fulfilment costs and increasing scrutiny around waste and sustainability. Trying to solve that tension through blanket policies, which don’t address or recognise the value of the individual customer, is increasingly unlikely to be effective.
Separate research of 100 UK retailers in our Return Economics Report found that 35% of brands now charge for returns, up +12 percentage points year-on-year. And with retailers including ASOS and PrettyLittleThing already tightening policies around high-frequency returners, there are growing signs consumers are adapting their behaviour to work around stricter controls. One in seven Gen Z shoppers now bypass retailers’ official returns channels altogether, instead reselling unwanted items through second-hand marketplaces to avoid fees.
The future of returns will be dynamic and AI-led
The retailers responding most effectively to the returns challenge are those recognising that the future of returns cannot rely on broad deterrence alone but instead depends on intelligent differentiation.
That means using AI, behavioural insight and operational data to create models that are dynamic rather than fixed. Reliable shoppers with lower return rates and greater customer lifetime value (CLV) could receive greater flexibility, waived fees or extended windows for sending back items. Meanwhile, ‘higher-risk’ consumers with consistently excessive returns behaviours may face tighter conditions or higher charges.
This returns personalisation is already winning favour with shoppers, with almost a quarter (22%) saying returns fees should be personalised depending on each customer’s individual returns propensity. A further 14% believe they should be charged less for returns if they send back items quickly, allowing brands to process, re-merchandise and recover value from the item being sent back.
The opportunity extends beyond simply reducing costs. Smarter returns strategies can also improve inventory efficiency, accelerate re-commerce and reduce the amount of stock tied up in reverse logistics processes. The faster retailers can process and re-merchandise returned items, the faster they recover value.
Ultimately, returns are becoming too commercially significant to remain governed by one-size-fits-all operational policies. Armed with the technology and intelligence to transform their systems, retailers that have spent decades personalising how they acquire, engage and retain customers can now apply that same rigour to post-purchase and returns experiences.
