退貨成了線上零售商的大麻煩
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2013/12/27
2013-12-20 Web only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/elwillo/ |
大型德國線上零售商Zalando原本的廣告口號是這樣的：「開心地尖叫，要不就把它退回來！」但因為實在太多人採納後半段的建議，現在Zalando在行銷時只喊出「開心地尖叫！」。
線上企業除了提出慷慨的退貨政策之外，實在沒有太多選擇：要是不能退貨，很多人根本不會買他們沒試用過的東西。退貨率有時高得嚇人：部分線上零售商出售的商品高達半數會被退回。研究發現，線上零售商處理每一筆退貨的成本為6至18美元，要是再加上狀況不佳、無法再次出售的商品，成本就會更高。2014年，歐盟將實施與德國類似的法律，要求線上企業提供14天的無條件退貨期。美國的法律沒那麼大方，但線上企業仍舊得面對顧客退貨帶來的巨大成本。
線上服裝銷售商就和實體店面一樣，懷疑它們有群習慣性退貨的顧客。德國有所謂的「Zalando派對」，亦即青少女會為重要周末訂購大量商品，然後全數退貨（口袋裡還留有忘記取出的車鑰匙等物品）。
法蘭克福財務及管理學院的舒茲（Christian
Schulze）進行了一項新研究，希望能量化習慣性退貨問題。舒茲為一間大型歐洲線上零售商研究了16.6萬名顧客在德國進行的590萬筆交易。他只檢視在5年內購買5件以上商品的顧客，結果發現5％的顧客會退回超過80％他們購買的商品，更有1％的顧客會退回至少90％的商品。研究顯示，要是沒有退貨成本，該零售商利潤可以增加近50％。
處理這些顯然不滿意的顧客並非易事。2013年7月，報導指出Amazon的德國營運單位在「開除」部分這類顧客（Amazon並未確認此事）。但此作法可能會帶來不良後果：遭拒的購物者很可能會在報紙或社群媒體上抱怨──而他們的不滿也許會引來其他更有利可圖的顧客抵制。
線上銷售商明確提出什麼樣的行為是在濫用其退貨政策，或許會有幫助──就有點像是寬頻和行動網路供應商的「合理使用」規定。購買大量商品的高退貨率購客值得保留，因此企業可以提供誘因以減低他們的退貨率。至於那些非得去除的顧客，企業還是可以安撫他們；網路服務供應商1&1在非得開除幾名用掉了巨量頻寬的固定費率客戶之時，給了他們價值100歐元的離別禮物。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2013
The Economist
Online retailing
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By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: December 20, 2013
Dec 21st 2013 | BERLIN | From the print edition
E-commerce firms have a hard core of costly, impossible-to-please
customers.
"SCHREI vor Glück oder schick's zurück!" went the slogan for
Zalando, a big German online retailer: "Scream for joy or send it
back!" But so many people took up the second half of the slogan that
Zalando now uses just "Schrei vor Glück!" in its marketing.
Online firms, even more than bricks-and-mortar retailers, have little
choice but to be generous with their returns policies: few people would buy
things they have not tried on if they could not send them back. Return rates
can be alarmingly high: for some online retailers up to half of everything they
sell comes back. Studies find that just handling each returned item costs
online sellers between $6 and $18, and that is before the losses from items
that are returned in unsaleable condition. In 2014 the European Union will
adopt a law similar to Germany's, obliging online firms to offer a no-questions
return period of 14 days. American law is not so generous, but online firms there
still face hefty costs from customer returns.
Like physical stores, online clothes sellers suspect they have a hard
core of habitual returners. In Germany there has been talk of "Zalando
parties", with giggling teenage girls ordering crateloads of stuff for a
big weekend, only to send it all back (complete with forgotten car keys and
other such stuff in the pockets).
A new study by Christian Schulze of the Frankfurt School of Finance and
Management seeks to put some hard numbers on the scale of the serial-returner
problem. Mr Schulze studied 5.9m transactions in Germany, involving 166,000
customers, for a large European online retailer. He looked only at those who
had bought at least five items over a five-year period, and found that 5% of
them sent back more than 80% of the things they had bought; and that 1% of
customers sent back at least 90% of their purchases. Without the cost of
returns, the retailer's profits would be almost 50% higher, the study found.
Dealing with these apparently unsatisfiable customers is not easy. In
July 2013 there were reports that Amazon's German operation was
"sacking" some of them (the company has not confirmed this). But this
risks a backlash: rejected shoppers are likely to rush to the newspapers or
social media to complain—and their gripes may turn other, more profitable
customers against the firm.
It may help for online sellers to be clear about what they would regard
as abuse of their returns policy—rather like the "fair use" rules of
broadband and mobile-internet providers. High-returning customers who buy a lot
of stuff, and are thus worth keeping, could be offered incentives to reduce
their return rates. And those who, in the end, must be cut off could still be
mollified. When 1&1, an internet-service provider, had to fire a few
flat-rate customers for using huge amounts of bandwidth, it gave them a €100
($138) farewell present.
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2013
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