Customers want more flexible return policies

[mandy]

Even as e-commerce settles into maturity...retailers and their support system of e-commerce service providers and vendors continue to make incremental improvements in their return policy strategies.

Unlike in previous years, the big attraction for holiday shoppers in 2006 was neither advertising nor special offers, according to KPMG's newly released annual National Shopping Behavior survey.

Rather, 81 percent of consumers surveyed said they shopped at stores that carried the items they were looking for, and a whopping 75 percent said a simple return policy was a deciding factor. Price, according to the survey, was secondary, cited by just 19 percent of respondents as influencing their choice of a a retailer.

By contrast, respondents last year said price, selection and convenience were most important to them...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/Ceng6yZT...cies.xhtml

[BellisimaJ.]

Rather, 81 percent of consumers surveyed said they shopped at stores that carried the items they were looking for, and a whopping 75 percent said a simple return policy was a deciding factor.

The return policy is one of the things I always look at. If a business makes it excessively complicated or unfriendly, I go elsewhere. One thing that I learned from being in retail for many years, is that it is always worth it to have a very lenient and friendly return policy. Word of mouth spreads very rapidly.