Fashion firm Boohoo has become the latest retailer to charge return shoppers.
Customers will now have to pay £1.99 to return the products, with the cost deducted from their refund. The move, first reported by Retail Week, went into effect on July 4.
Boohoo attributed the move to rising shipping costs. High street firms like Uniqlo, Next and Zara already charge for online returns.
Online shopping boomed during the pandemic, but customers are more likely to return online items than in-store, increasing costs for retailers. Analysts said other retailers would likely follow suit in charging for the returns.
“Shoppers have had an easy ride, but that’s changing now – they will increasingly find there’s a price to pay for returns,” said Catherine Shuttleworth, retail expert and founder of Savvy Marketing.
“The financial and environmental costs have been stacking up for retailers… So retailers have been tightening up their returns policy by reducing the days a shopper can keep an item before expecting a return and in some cases charging a return fee,” she added.
“We expect to see this trend continuing, and now we’ve seen Boohoo quietly introduce it. If you buy something for £10 at Boohoo, it’s a real disincentive to return it if you lose £2, 20% of your investment to send it back.”
Boohoo’s brands include BoohooMan, Karen Millen, Nasty Gal, PrettyLittleThing, Coast, Misspap, Oasis, Warehouse, Burton, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins and Debenhams.
A spokesperson from Boohoo said: “As the cost of shipping has increased, we’ve had to look at where we can adapt without compromising what our customers love most, the convenience of shopping with us and the great value that our brands offer.
“This has meant that we will be applying a charge of £1.99 to returns so that we can continue to offer great prices and products and do this more sustainably.”