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Tonight I was checking my recently purchased items to leave positive feedback for something that arrived today. I noticed that the button next to each item says “Leave Feedback” until it is delivered, then it changes to “Return This Item”. And “Leave Feedback” becomes a small link under that button. I don’t like the idea of my items in buyers’ Purchase History having “Return This Item” as the first thing they see. Anyone else find this concerning?
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Yes, that is very concerning. They are helping to prompt a return thought pattern (power of suggestion) that may not have even come to mind. They are not focused on sellers but on their marketplace and pushing their agenda. Maybe this needs to be a topic raised at Ebay open and/or on ebay Facebook.
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I don’t see it as “pushing an agenda”, (what agenda is that, by the way?). How does ebay make money by encouraging buyers to return items? Do people really believe that buyers will see the “Start a Return” button and think “You know, I was going to keep this, but I really like clicking buttons! Let’s return it instead!” The only thing the returns button does is make it easier for a buyer to send back an item that they’d already decided they weren’t that happy with.
Many buyers are confused about how to start a return. They need a big button that says “Click Me!!!”, or else they don’t know what to do. I would rather direct a buyer to a big, obvious button to start the process than field another message asking me to walk them step-by-step through the return process.
Returns are a part of retail. You *will* have returns, no matter how much you fight them.
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Liz,
eBay’s agenda – free returns and a buyer favored return process.
Yes, returns are a part of business.
Putting a prompt in front of someone can set up the thought process for returns when it was not originally thought about. For example, a buyer buys a dress for an occasion and absolutely loves it and wants to wear it to the occasion but is concerned about the money spent, so they decided ahead of time that they would find other ways to be able to use the dress. But then they see the return prompt and decide to explore how exactly this item can be returned. This can lead to a simple thought that while they like the dress, they do not have to keep it even though they are going to wear it to their occasion.
Have you ever driven by several restaurants and all of sudden felt hungry even though you just ate a short time ago? That is power of suggestion and it is very strong in business and life.
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Making the return process unnecessarily difficult in order to discourage returns turns buyers off to buying on eBay. Ebay does not have a good reputation among potential buyers because too many of them have had frustrating experiences with difficult sellers. Those buyers don’t come back and are vocal in their opinion about why eBay is a scam and a hassle.
In your dress example, yeah, eBay could make the return button less obvious to hopefully frustrate the buyer into keeping the dress. But the next time that buyer needs to buy a dress for an event, they may avoid buying from eBay entirely because they know that if the dress doesn’t work out, they are stuck with it. They’ll go to Modcloth or Amazon instead.
A “take it or leave it” attitude does not bode well for the health of a retail business. Buyers have a lot of choices.
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Yeah, I think it’s fine to make the return process transparent and simple. Nothing wrong with this.
The bigger question is if it makes sense to your store offer free shipping or free returns. But thankfully that’s a choice we can each make. Hopefully eBay wont be punishing those who choose to charge for shipping in the search results.
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I think the key there is that eBay doesn’t punish, but the buyers can. They can filter on Free Shipping, Free Returns, and Guaranteed Delivery. For every filter you don’t fit in, you lose potential sales.
For some items this doesn’t matter, for some it does. It is the buyers who will do the filtering, and eBay provides the tools to do so.
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I think we will have to agree to disagree.
I never said make the process hard or have an attitude. I noted that having a visual cue definely placed can help prompt a thought pattern of return.
Notice that the feedback button is smaller and below the return button. It shows a level of order and importance that the brain can pick up on consciously or subconciously. It also shows a level of importance of action to be taken.
Feedback can help drive a platform to continued top level performance or to making improvements so that needs to be the priority above returns.
The next time you are out, pay attention to how you react to someone based on how they are dressed and/or groomed. Notice as to whether you move closer or further away from the person. Our reactions are instinctual and learned and can be triggered subconsciously and without intention. How one reacts to something visually can effect the rest of their response and/or interactional pattern.
Notice that when creating a listing, if at least one picture is not included the listing can not be completed. Notice that ebay gives room for and strongly suggests using 12 pictures. Visual cues are very important in business and life.
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Thanks for the image of what buyers are now seeing.
I hear Rob’s concern that eBay is making it too easy to returns items, but I ultimately agree with Liz that buyers usually want to keep the items they buy. No need to hide the return process.
I think we just have to let this new Returns push play out on eBay.
–Corporate is hoping that easy/free returns will attract more business and sales.
–Is Free Returns a game changer for buyers? Will buyers choose to buy an item on eBay instead of Amazon because of this?
–Or will they instead see more returns and less total sales, hurting their bottom line?We got two more returns last night. We average about 4-6 per month, so lets see if we get more than this in June.
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I think this change just makes eBay more friendly for buyers. In the past, I’ve had buyers express frustration about not knowing how to initiate a return. Sometimes, they just mail it back without starting a return at all. The return process should be simple and easy to understand and initiate. I think this eliminates some of that confusion.
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I can second that issue. I hate that when buyers do want to return an item, eBay makes it difficult for them to navigate the process. I almost wish the buyer would contact me and I could do the return on my end for them.
Just make a happy customer when they are unhappy with the item. That keeps them coming back!
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I’m guessing the trajectory will be similar to free shipping…there was a lot of unreasonable fear that ebay would make free shipping mandatory for everything on ebay. Of course, that never happened, and, in fact, ebay doesn’t do a lot of pushing on free shipping these days. Why? Because ebay probably met the internal goals they set for free shipping….the percentage of items with free shipping on ebay has been pretty consistent for a while now, and I think eBay’s satisfied with not only the overall percentage, but the percentage per category as well. Many of us sell a lot in the Arts and Collectibles vertical , and that’s never been a major free shipping concern for ebay. (That’s probably true for free returns as well)
It will take a while, but ebay will eventually get to the point where an acceptable percentage of listings include free return shipping, and I agree with Zach, we will likely all benefit from the increase in buyers as a result. In the meantime, as always, it’s up to each of us to figure out whether or not free returns is a good choice for us, as individual sellers. That answer will vary among us
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Good discussion. I didn’t mean to start a conspiracy theory, it just concerned me when I went to leave feedback, and the option was dwarfed by a huge Return This Item button. I do agree philosophically with eBay on what they’re trying to do with returns. I think anything we can do to mitigate the risk of sending strangers your money can only help the marketplace. The question becomes whether it has a net negative impact to your business. I would assume clothing sellers are probably going to ultimately decide not to offer free returns, because it makes it too easy to buy-to-try. My wife buys clothes at retail stores all the time without trying them on, because “I can just return it if it doesn’t fit”. I fear that may be what eBay becomes with free returns.
We don’t sell clothing, and have a very low return rate. I have been VERY part time the last few years, but I would say I haven’t had a single return in my last 200-300 transactions. In fact, the last return I can remember was a t-shirt. So I’m probably a better candidate for offering free returns than a clothing seller. And I probably won’t offer it on items that cost alot to ship.
But back to the original topic, I’m fine with making the process easier for buyers. I don’t think eBay should make it an obstacle to return items, as a deterrent, and force people to keep things they don’t want. I wouldn’t like that as a buyer. Just struck me as odd, as I hadn’t seen that huge button.
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Rob: I think on the clothing it will depend on Men’s vs Women’s. It seems that most clothing resellers that have a high return rate are heavy on Women’s clothes. We are mostly Men’s (Women’s is primarily jeans and shoes), and we are still below 2% returns with Free Returns (1.82% as of right now).
In the last 60 days, we have had 11 returns:
Clothing – 6 (All Men’s, 5 “Doesn’t Fit”, 1 “Found Better Price”)
Shoes – 3 (2 Men’s, 1 Women’s, all “Doesn’t Fit)
Hard Goods – 2, Both Arrived Damaged (1 claim filed with USPS, 1 was GSP so we already are covered).
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Yes, visual cues are important.
But let us not give them powers beyond their abilities. I do not think a buyer, who is happy with his purchase, with no desire to return the item, is going to have his free will obliterated by a button saying “return this item.”
If buttons had such power, then surely all my fixed price items that have had at least one view should have sold by now, for how can buyers deny the power of the irresistible Buy It Now button?
On the other hand, if a buyer actually WANTS to buy the item, then a prominent Buy It Now button makes that easier. Same as a buyer who already knows he wants to return an item will find it easier to do if the button is more prominent.
I just don’t see a problem here. Just as I think ebay should make check out as easy as possible, I can see making returns easy.
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I agree with Rob
I hate that they stick the return option in the buyers face and force sellers to do free returns.
It sucks
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