Comment: Retailers should see that returned goods mean returning customers

In January, everyone comes back to earth with a bump, with lots to catch up on. For us in retailing, it can mean a surge in returns, perhaps unwanted Christmas gifts or consumers realising they need or want a different product.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, but online retail has propelled post-Christmas return rates to new levels.

Take the fashion sector. Customers often enjoy free delivery to try on an array of new merchandise. They know that they have the option of free returns, for any or all of these.

As retailers we could choose to resist this service. We could make it harder for customers to return goods, while staying within the legal framework. After all, it may be argued, the processing of returns can be labour-intensive. It diverts colleagues from the important activity of selling, and does nothing for the store P&L.

Everyone has been to a store where the salesperson has seemed less than helpful in dealing with a refund.

I tend to look at it differently. Isn’t it better that a customer should have the opportunity to change their mind and return a product that is unsuitable, or which they can’t really afford?

Surely they shouldn’t be stuck with something that they don’t want or that doesn’t suit their needs.

In fact, the negative of a return can be transformed into a positive encounter for customer and retailer.

Making it easy to return a product is an important signal to customers that your business has a positive approach to customer service.

Moreover, shoppers returning product to the store, not least unwanted online purchases, represent additional footfall and therefore potential additional purchases.

At BrightHouse, our customers enter into rent-to-own agreements that can last up to three years. The ability to return has always been important, and not just in the month after the sale.

As many of our customers are from less affluent demographic groups, it’s not a surprise that sometimes their circumstances change.

Our proposition is that the customer can return the product at any time, with no more to pay.

In many cases, such products have been used intensively by the families who shop with us. We send them all to our workshops to be comprehensively refurbished. They then are clearly displayed as Quality Refurbished lines in our stores and sold at a discount.

Everyone wins, from the customer who returned the product and has nothing more to pay, to the customer who is paying less for a Quality Refurbished product.

We at BrightHouse benefit from reselling the item, and the environment benefits from a perfectly serviceable product not going into the waste cycle. It is a win-win.

For us, like other retailers who are doing similar things, returns are not something we see as a burden, but as an opportunity for enhancement of reputation, customer service and, indeed, profitable trading.

• Leo McKee is chief executive of BrightHouse