When fast fashion giants like Zara were busy promoting impulse purchases, no questions asked return policy, thirty days of window period, black Friday promotions, basically anything to get the stock out, little did they know they would unleash a consumerist monster that would come back to haunt them.
A relatively new kind of epidemic is plaguing the retail industry and costing retailers in billions. While the term wardrobing is largely unfamiliar, the phenomenon is atleast a decade old, if not more. Buying with the intention to wear only once, wearing with tags attached and returning has become a fairly recurrent practice among a large section of regular shoppers.
According to returns management software company Optoro, a survey conducted by them in 2023, revealed that 30% of shoppers admitted to buying an item for a specific event only. Many such statistics thrown by several other players in the industry are equally alarming. According to the world’s largest retail trade association, National Retail Federation, scams like wardrobing are estimated to cost the US retail industry around $13 billion lost in sales every year.
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Another 2023 survey by Signifyd/Onepoll found that almost a third of buyers had made false damage or refund claims. While the return rates vary both in category and are different for each brand, clothing items invariably lead the returns category with a rate of roughly 25%. Amena Ali, CEO of Optoro, has often thrown some perspective on the return patterns.
“During summer and cruise season, which is from July to September, we see wardrobing and overall return rates spike by two or three times,” she says, highlighting the fine line between habitual returners and fraudsters.
Wardrobing — costs billions and ends up in landfills
The practice sets off an entire vicious cycle of unsustainability. Not all returns are viable enough for companies to resell, thereby channeling off the practice of discard. According to Optoro, in 2022, 9.5 billion pounds of returns were sent straight to landfill.
The all-pervading social media is one major factor pushing the wardrobing retail frauds. Social media is like a digital platform or a visual logbook where an outfit, once worn and posted, loses its charm thereafter. The rise of influencer culture, where millions of aspiring influencers conduct daily fit checks, wear an item once and thereafter ship it back to the seller.
What is the way out?
For now, almost all of the affected corporations seem to have dived headfirst into finding solutions to the practice. In 2022, when online shopping had peaked post pandemic, Zara started charging shoppers for returns of products bought online. However, the returns were kept free for those ready to drive to the store and return in person.
The senior management admitted to allowing free in-store returns to reduce the costs and also drive people back to the stores. While the extent to which each company is affected by wardrobing vastly differs and depends on the product lines, the pricing of items and the profile of their average shopper, all of them are affected enough to tackle the issue in creative ways.
Some retailers are addressing the issue by reducing the time frame in which consumers can make returns, by eliminating free returns or requiring shoppers to bring an item in store for inspection where they can be physically examined for tell-tale signs of having been worn.
Companies like Gap, Next and Uniqlo rely on AI and softwares to identify habitual returners from fraudsters. In 2023, Diesel came up with perhaps the boldest and most creative take on wardrobing. Diesel’s campaign, launched ahead of New York Fashion Week, highlighted the practice of buying an item, wearing it and then returning it.
Instead of preaching its consumers to not indulge in the practice, Diesel encouraged buyers to do the same in fact and not forget to enjoy every piece of clothing before returning it.
A few European boutiques have started attaching tags outside the garment where they are clearly visible, instead of at places where it can be worn with tag attached.
Resorting to slow fashion, encouraging campaigns like repeat-your-outfits can have a huge impact on mindless hoarding, impulse purchases, returns and eventually wardrobing. But for that to happen the retailers will have to significantly promote responsible shopping first.
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