Nordstrom banned from shopping from their online and store
- Thread starter mzmba
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I think they look at the dollar sales - the aggregated dollar amount of the items you keep, compared to the dollar amount of the items you returned.
I live reasonably close to Nordstrom and tons of other stores. I would prefer to go to the store to try on something before I buy. I ALWAYS try to find a store nearby that carries something I want. But it is rare that NM, Nordstrom, Bloomies and other stores have online items in the store. It is frustrating. Usually, I just don't bother buying. It is too annoying to have to return (and I almost always take the returns directly to the store within days of receiving them).
I personally refuse to shop at stores with long return policies because of chances of getting a returned stock is way too high (although I do wash everything washable before wearing it). I appreciate that not everybody live near physical stores but that's not stores' problem that you do. Maybe the way to get around this is to impose outbound and return shipping fees. That way, the store can recover some costs and give people chances to order and return for things they can't easily try.
I don't buy a lot of clothes online. Actually I don't think I've ever bought clothing except for robes. I have bought shoes a few times, which are subject to trying on before you know if they will fit and be comfortable.
If you're suggesting that all of us pay return shipping, I don't like that idea. I hate to think I may buy something, have it not work out and then have to bear the cost of shipping both ways. Not saying I agree with these people who abuse the system but don't want to see them spoil it for everyone.
I wouldn't purchase anything that I had to pay return shipping on unless I was pretty sure it would work for me
I hate paying shipping, especially return shipping. It has really cut down on my purchases from places that charge for it, like the Coach outlet.
If you need to go to a shop to buy things, unless you can walk there, you will need to incur a cost to get there. Shipping fees is no difference. Like I said, I don't shop with stores allow such as 3 months+ return period unless I can physically see the goods. You can't have it both ways, why should the store, which is not a charity organisation bear all costs?
In my country, online stores generally charge shipping one way, e.g. you either pay outbound shipping get returns for free or free shipping but charged for returns. You can avoid charges by picking it up or dropping it off in store or in parcel shops, so unless you can walk there, it will cost you.
Besides, I was just suggesting it as a possible alternative, it's not as if the stores would listen to me and start to implement it tomorrow so chill out.
I am sure the stores hate free shipping and free returns so that that.
They offer free shipping and free returns because it results in more sales. If it didn't, they wouldn't offer it. They don't hate it.
Here comes one of my essays ...
I’m so puzzled, reading various posts in this thread and others about online returns, by why this issue becomes so contentious sometimes in the particular way it does, as though it’s a battle between shoppers who return a lot and those who never return anything, and as though people who return are somehow exploiting retailers’ goodwill and spoiling things for other customers, or the other view that retailers are unfair to ban serial heavy returners. Some people undoubtedly push the system to its limits, but surely this isn’t where the problem lies? It’s all a simple business matter, not a moral one, isn’t it? I know plenty have people have offered points of view like mine too.
I’ve always viewed it that if retail businesses sell online, it must be because it is profitable for them to do so, not because they are being kind. Being able to return things you’ve bought online is what makes shopping online possible and it’s up to retailers to decide upon how they state and manage their return policy to stay profitable.
Who would ever buy anything online if they couldn’t return the goods in simple fashion? The business wouldn’t exist. It has nothing to do with whether you should go to a physical store or not/live near one/live miles from one. The offer is freely made, subject to conditions, by the business, the customer is free to take up the offer or not, businesses and other customers are not being abused when a customer buys from a company with such a policy and makes returns according with it. Right to return with ‘distance selling’, which covers mail order and online, is also a legal matter in the UK and Europe, and may be elsewhere, but I don’t know the laws in the rest of the world.
For a customer to be able to shop online with confidence and thus allow the retailer to make their profit, they need to know they can return with no quibbles. Will it fit? Will it suit me? Will the fabric/colour/style really be as it appears on screen? Does the style look like the same thing in my size that it does on the model? The way I view it, particularly with clothing, is that I have to order whatever I would have taken into a fitting room to try on if I were in a physical store, and be able to return anything that does not work for me. Meantime the retailer hangs onto my money and is at liberty to refuse my return if I do not return items promptly in the time allowed and in good condition.
With regard to whether items returned by an online shopper are still ‘new’ or not, which some people have sometimes justifiable concerns about, surely the answer is that an item tried on and returned to an online retailer is just as ‘new’ as an item in a physical store that has been tried on in a physical store, decided against, and returned to the shop floor in the normal way? Items that are received when online shopping that are in terrible condition are a sign the retailer is not doing its job to firstly refuse returned goods which are spoilt, and secondly in sending those spoilt goods on to another customer. So the responsibility for sending any effectively truly second-hand goods to a customer lies with the retailer, not the customer who spoilt the item, however shabby that customer’s behaviour was. It’s just a bad retailer failing to uphold its own policies. Surely no retailer has an actual policy that they will accept returns in any condition at all?*
Obviously there will be cases of customers who over a long period of time return such a high proportion of what they buy, or frequently return things in bad, not-as-sold condition (which the retailer ought to refuse to accept item by item), that to have a very large number of such customers would start to reduce reasonable profitability. And in those cases surely it is obvious that the retailer has the right to decide they will no longer sell to those customers/close those customers’ accounts? Provided that closing somebody’s account for this reason is in accordance with any terms and conditions originally agreed to when first creating the account, or in a similar way in accordance with the T&Cs if the same shopper was making an unreasonable number of returns or returning wrecked goods as a ‘guest’ client without an account, if the retailer is able to identify them. They would only be able to apply this as far as the law allows them to. Any business makes an offer and can choose not to do business with a customer if the legally valid stated terms and conditions are not complied with by the customer.
The only remaining query, then, from the customer point of view would be: “What is this ‘unreasonable’ pattern of/level of/condition of returns that might get me banned?” It is probably at the retailer’s discretion and probably just requires common sense to assess. I can’t comment for various different retailers, but Net-a-Porter for instance says what the screenshot below shows. It’s at their discretion rather than very specific probably because it’s difficult to quantify and is based upon different factors with an individual customer. It will be courteous of them to issue a polite warning rather than ban immediately. And if they issue you a warning but you didn’t think your returns were unreasonable, you can talk to them about it I’m sure, or alternatively think about whether your pattern of returns is maybe a bit unreasonable. Sometimes I’ll order multiple sizes of a new item that might sell out quickly because an alternative size will have disappeared before I can exchange. I think that’s fair enough. Personally, I feel that in the online shopping context, it’s reasonable occasionally to order four dresses for an occasion and try all on before deciding which I really prefer, or even return them all, promptly and in original condition, if none really hits the mark. But I wouldn’t do such a high volume return regularly. Have you fallen into a pattern of regularly ordering absolutely everything that catches your eye knowing full well you’re going to consistently return a huge proportion of it, or are you ordering multiples for genuine reasons, returning just what really doesn’t fit or suit you, or turns out to be not as expected from the screen? Very occasionally if I think a run of returns for perfectly valid reasons might nevertheless look odd, I have emailed customer service to explain the reasons so that it’s on record, and I could refer to it if I ever received a warning (which I never have, but who knows if it could happen if they don’t know for sure all the criteria?)
Regarding the point of whether the customer ‘should’ pay for shipping and returns, and are they creating ‘unfair’ costs for the retailer, I have always made the assumption that online retailers will have decided how far they can incorporate this into the prices of their goods and weigh it against the hugely increased business they can do online and the reduced costs of not having a physical store or maintain fewer physical stores. Charging shipping either way is really just a business decision, not a moral one where some customers should pay because others never want to return anything. Those customers who never want to return everything still have the return policy available to them so it is still a benefit, and if other customers were prevented from or had to pay more for their returns, quite likely those who never return anything would find what is available to buy online shrinks as other customers desert online shopping and retailers can’t make enough money from it. I imagine that where businesses do not charge for return shipping, they have calculated that it increases their business overall and contributes to its viability. We read often about the online retail business struggling with large numbers of returns and it reducing their profits, but this isn’t a moral issue, it’s a business model/profitability issue that the retailers have to decide upon.
It’s for the retailers to decide their business model and the consumer to decide whether to accept the offer. I don’t understand why some retailers have a really long or open-ended return policy (except for faulty goods which are covered by law anyway) This is uncommon in the UK; Marks & Spencer and John Lewis stopped their open ended policy and reduced the returns/exchanges window years ago, and the only European retailer I know of that has a long returns window is Zalando. I get the impression here that some US online retailers have long windows. They must have decided it works for them and are at liberty to change their policy, subject to consumer law, when it no longer works as a business model. Of course it’s not working for consumers when they receive essentially used goods when paying for new, but that is a separate customer service issue and the retailer is responsible for managing it. We can return unacceptable goods to or choose not to buy from retailers who have poor quality control over their returns and ship spoilt goods out to new customers.
It’s all a simple business issue, isn’t it? That’s not a statement, it is my belief, but I’m also asking anybody if there’s some point I’ve missed. As for whether some people abuse the system and spoil it for the rest of us, well, that’s for the retailers to work out as part of their business model and it’s really not a “You with your returns are spoiling it for me who never returns anything.” The only MORAL issue we should be getting worried about here, as I see it, the only ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ is one we all need to take responsibility for: the hugely increased transport pollution associated with high levels of deliveries and returns. I find it very difficult to get to physical stores and find online shopping a great opportunity to get things from near and far, and would not be able to do this without easy return policies. So I increase the retailers’ business and help to keep the business commercially sustainable which benefits returners and non-returners alike. Nevertheless I am guilty of being a contributor to global pollution by doing so and I aim to reduce not just my returning but also my shopping in the first place.
* Note that this is not something that applies to purchase or return of second hand goods from private seller on resale platforms unless in SNAD cases; that’s obviously a different point which I only mention here for the sake of clarity, just in case anyone is thinking about it.
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Ok, thank you for this post! I’m also baffled as to why this issue is so contentious to the point where posts are vitriolic. The US has very liberal return policies compared to the rest of the world, where often it’s all sales final all the time.
That said, yesterday when I went to Nordstrom a woman returned $500 worth of Sam Edelman shoes. She brought them in in three shopping bags. Someone like that should be in the running for a ban. If online returns are a problem, Nordstrom could do something like Sephora or Amazon Prime where you pay a yearly membership fee for free shipping.
Thanks to you too! I feel it’s a matter of common sense, not emotion, don’t you?
It’s interesting, the differences in policies throughout the world. Liberal time-unlimited or long-window return policies have become uncommon in the UK and Europe, as no doubt they can be ultimately detrimental to business, but even if it’s not just common sense for business that online retailers accept returns, consumer law dictates the right to return in all distance selling (except for customised goods, or second hand goods from a private seller unless they are not as described, the latter of which certainly applies in the UK and I think probably applies in the rest of Europe too, though I am not certain of my facts on Europe). I have no knowledge of the consumer law elsewhere. I agree that a customer like the one you mentioned should be in the running for a ban; retailers have to be able to protect against unreasonable returns to stay profitable and then this also prevents prices escalating for everyone.
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