FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal

Rant - Most Indian consumers lack ethics

Opening my MIS yesterday was rough. 41% return rate in Jan.

Not going to dress this up - we're dying under returns. The math is simple and brutal: 42L in sales, 17L in returns, 6.5L just in return handling. Every returned piece costs us ₹180-220 in logistics alone.

Been running this brand for 2 years. Returns went from 18% to 41%. No fancy analysis needed - people are just buying, wearing, and returning. Today's returns included our cargo pants with a mehendi stain. Return reason? "Fitting issues." Right.

The data tells the story:

  • Metro cities: 65% of returns
  • Peak return time: Monday/Tuesday
  • Common pattern: Order Friday, wear weekend, return Monday (note: Jan was also the wedding season)

Costs:

  • Manufacturing: 32%
  • Marketing: 28%
  • Logistics: 12%
  • Marketplace: 15%
  • Payment/Returns: 8%

At 40% returns, we're underwater. Half these returns can't even go back to full price. Marketplace penalties for high return rates are another story entirely.

Honest truth: the Indian market has a fundamentally broken relationship with D2C brands. We're stuck between customers who want international brand quality but want to pay fast fashion prices - and then return it anyway. This isn't just a return problem. It's about a market that hasn't figured out how to value quality over quantity, where "free returns" has become a way to game the system rather than a genuine customer service.

The bigger problem is that no D2C brand can "not offer" free returns - that's a definite recipe for death even before you start.

Not sure how long small brands can survive this. To the customers who actually keep what they buy - you're literally keeping us alive, thanks from the bottom of my heart!

That's it. It's Monday so back to processing returns.

12d ago
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CosmicLlama
CosmicLlama

This is a true and persistent problem. If user lack ethics, so do sellers. Once i ordered a bag thru amazon, i got a bag that was damaged. not big damage but one of the zipper was broken.
I once ordered a jacket, and it was very clear that i got was a "used" one. probably one of those weekend user who returned the product. The seller was willing to ship it even when it was dirty. I never ordered clothes online again. Now i get it custom stitched, just so i dont have to wear used clothes.

Indian society is a low trust society. Both buyers and sellers are to be blamed.

FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal

True - it's a vicious cycle though. On Amazon (especially FBA), sellers often can't even inspect returns - Amazon's warehouse team does basic checks and puts items back in circulation. It's why so many D2C brands are moving away from FBA.

Not defending bad sellers, but imagine: damaged returns get minimal checks, go back to inventory, new customer gets a used item, loses trust, stops buying or returns it and voila the cycle continues. The seller has no control but takes the reputation hit.

PrancingWaffle
PrancingWaffle

It's mostly from fraud customer returns where the minimum wage warehouse worker didn't check well enou6

PerkyMarshmallow
PerkyMarshmallow

Put a massive ass tag that can't be folded (think 3 TIMES the size of the OffWhite one). Right in front. Making it impossible to wear without cutting. Tag off. No return. Simple

DancingRaccoon
DancingRaccoon

Yes this is what rare rabbit does. I ordered a premium shirt and one of the buttons had this tag and I found it hard to open the button to wear the shirt for trial. Opened the button after trying very hard, but this is the best strategy to solve this issue.

PrancingWaffle
PrancingWaffle

Flipkart also implemented this on party wear

PrancingKoala
PrancingKoala

Are there repeat users returning? Add a return fee?
Are you selling through Amazon?

FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal
  1. Retention is strong for us - genuine customers love the product. So no: repeat users aren't returning (ofcourse some do come back but that's exchange for genuine reasons)
  2. Return fees don't work - just like most brands can't survive without offering COD in India; they also can't survive without offering free returns. It's table stakes.
  3. Yes, sell across channels - Amazon is about 25% of our total sales.
JumpyWaffle
JumpyWaffle

Holy shit. 41% return rate may be so hard to take as an entrepreneur/builder

You said the common pattern is
order on Friday, wear on weekend and return on Monday/Tuesday. But if you order something on Friday it usually doesn't get delivered till next week? So it doesn't make sense?

Also can't you put those seal tags saying return won't be accepted if broken? So people don't wear clothes?

FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal

Figure of speech sir - the pattern is like order around Tues/Weds so it gets delivered by Friday and then returns are raised on Sunday so that is pickup Monday

Fun fact: a lot of times the tags are actually intact, they'd go through the pain of a tag poking you but won't pay for what they use 🤷🏻‍♂️

PrancingKoala
PrancingKoala

I think myntra does it in a clever way, have a tag at the place such that it's not wearable in public until it's removed and if the tag is missing in return then don't accept the return.

PrancingWaffle
PrancingWaffle

Having worked with this data at Flipkart. Wholeheartedly agree with you. Many customers are very very big scamsters. Indians have no ethics, people somehow feel it's ok to scam companies

SwirlyPickle
SwirlyPickle

Maybe you're not selling to your right TG? You can test out store credit if it's so high for you.
I get that competition is high, but 41% return rate is way too high

FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal

Jan's 41% is an outlier - around 13% higher from our averages which is roughly 26-28%; pretty standard for the Indian market esp in fashion. There are a couple of months a year when it's this obnoxious; wedding seasons being one of those times.

My point is still around the Indian consumer lacking ethics - not sure how anyone in their right consciousness can return something you've used properly. This is just exploitation.

SwirlyBiscuit
SwirlyBiscuit
Student12d

Hi man, being a performance marketer in the space, this is a major problem. Due to this I’m building Qwikli, a 60-minute delivery for D2C brands integrating through all your online channels and our tech and everything is ready for now and we’re looking for investors and would love to collaborate with you.
Here’s what we can do with you, We can introduce a 60-minute delivery with a try-and-buy feature with you so in that case customers can order the product and try it out themselves and the delivery executive will wait for 15 minutes for them, if the customer likes the product they will get it, if they don’t like it they can give it to the delivery executive itself., and then you don’t need to offer returns post that. Now, here’s where the better part for you comes in

We don’t charge over RTOs (we charge only for forward logistics and no reverse logistics cost) due to dark stores in a close proximity. So, we charge a flat fee every order, no weight based shipping with live order tracking. So, in India RTOs and RVPs in fashion happen due to majorly 2 reasons,
Long delivery timelines and poor shipping communication which we solve with 60 minute deliveries
and Poor fit etc of the product that causes returns which can be solved with try and buy that we can offer. Essentially we can help bring your RTOs and RVPs down to 2% and in return we get an investment from you. Let me know if you’d love to connect over a call to discuss

GigglyNoodle
GigglyNoodle

Rush on holiday, weekends and nights (after office), low volumes the rest of time?

SwirlyBiscuit
SwirlyBiscuit
Student11d

Partly yes, highest order volumes over weekends and lowest is on Thursday, and we plan to only operate from 10-10 so major chunk of nightly orders too

FloatingJellybean
FloatingJellybean

Can't you just... Decline if the returns are damaged like mehndi/used. Or reduce the return option valid till 1 day? It's sufficient to check the sizes

FuzzyNarwhal
FuzzyNarwhal
  1. We do in some cases, but then again that's a huge operational task where in the customer keeps arguing - "It was delivered like this"; we are getting better at handling this though. Atleast trying to :)
  2. We have a 5 day return policy - 1 day never works, people are travelling or busy with work etc; industry standard is 7 we still do 5 given we are fairly small scale wise compared to larger brands
FloatingJellybean
FloatingJellybean

Hmm I understand. It's not just customer ethics, guess it's reflected everywhere. 🤷🏻‍♂️.. probably would still stay the same after 100yrs.

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