When one size keeps coming back, fix the listing

Returns get reported as a rate. “Returns are up this month.” The rate is true and useless, because it averages a hundred products that are fine with one that is not.

Cut the same returns by product, then by size, then by the reason the customer gave, and the picture changes. It is rarely the store. It is one size of one piece, coming back for one reason, and it will keep coming back until the listing changes.

Cut by product and size

Take last month’s returns and group them by product and size. Compare each group’s return rate to the store average for the same period. One or two will stand out, and they will not be the products you expected.

Ask Beya:

Which product and size combinations were returned at more than twice the store average last month?

Read the reasons

Return reasons are free text and customers do not use your categories. “Runs small”, “smaller than expected”, “too tight in the hip” are the same reason. Read them together. When nine of eleven reasons for one size say the same thing, you have your answer.

What reasons did customers give for returning the Linen Wide-Leg in size 12?

Fix the listing, not the customer

A fit problem in one size has three fixes, and none of them is a stricter returns policy:

• The size guide. If a size runs small, say so on the page, in that size’s row.
• The photos. A piece photographed on one body in one size tells customers of other sizes nothing. Add the fit note under the photo.
• The exchange note. The customer who returned the 12 wanted the piece. Offer the 14 before you refund.

Watch the trend, not the spike

A bad week is noise. A return rate for one piece that climbs three weeks running is a change: new photos, a supplier batch, a price move. Check what changed on the date the climb started.

Has the return rate on the Linen Wide-Leg been climbing since we changed the photos?

Run it with Beya

Beya’s returns agent reads returns with their reasons from Shopify, compares each product and size against its own history and the store average, and flags the one that broke pattern with the reason customers gave. It proposes the fix: a size-guide edit, a photo note, or an exchange message to the customer. You approve it in the thread, and Beya makes the change or hands you the draft.

Propose a size-guide change for the Linen Wide-Leg based on this month’s return reasons.