Serial returners push up price of ladies fashion

WOMEN who send clothes back to the shop may be to blame for the gender price divide after research found that two thirds of women return online purchases.

It has emerged that “serial returners” are placing an increasing burden on fashion brands and are likely to be a major reason behind retailers pushing up prices for certain groups.

When shoppers choose to return items, outlets must cover the cost of the postage, processing and storage of clothes and then prepare them for resale.

This process, known as “reverse logistics”, cost retailers a total of £95.8 million in 2013, according to Columino, a retail analyst.

This cost is expected to have risen considerably since then as a surge in the use of smartphones has led to shoppers making more impulse purchases. Retailers say free returns are a vital part of their business but that costs have to be recovered from somewhere.

A number of investigations have found a marked difference in price between men’s and women’s clothing. For example, a Topshop roll- sleeve white T-shirt for women costs £12 while the same item in the men’s department is priced at £8.

Research by Savvy Marketing, a consumer analyst, found that 63pc of female online shoppers have returned an item of clothing in the past six months, compared with an average of 56pc for all shoppers.

In decades past retailers catered purely for high street shoppers who were used to being able to hold and try on clothes. But now they have to cater for a new breed of customers, especially the younger generation, who expect to be able to buy products at home and send back the ones they do not want without charge.

“Online deliveries and free returns is allowing people’s bedrooms to become extensions of shops’ changing rooms,” said Tony Mannix, the chief executive of Clipper Logistics, a returns company.