Esprit no longer ships to customers that return too many items

Fashion chain Esprit will no longer deliver online orders to customers that return over 90 % of their ordered items. The company says it needs to do enforce this policy to ensure its free return policy remains viable in the future.

Only in rare cases

Only customers that return more than 90 % of their latest 16 orders, over the course of the past two years, will be banned for Esprit’s web shop. If they get close to that percentage, they will receive a mail warning them of the possible ban. Esprit says only very few people are currently banned from its web shop after such an incredibly high return rate.

“We understand this may be an unexpected turn of events for some customers as our industry has made a free return policy part of its services. In some cases, the return rate is exceptionally high”, Esprit told RetailDetail. “We can only continue our free return policy if our customers’ return rate remains acceptable.” It has now decided to enforce this new rule all across its European web shops.

Following the news, H&M and Zalando have acknowledged they will not implement a similar system as both feel it is the retailer’s job to make sure the return rate drops.