How to Counter Bracketing During Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2024

Picture this: cold weather is coming and you're online shopping for the perfect winter coat, but you're unsure about the size and torn between two captivating colors. If their was a retail location in your area, you might go and try them on, but that’s not possible. You decide to take a bold approach – you purchase four coats in two different sizes and two colors, planning to return at least two of them to ensure you find the ideal fit and look.

Pretty awesome for you, as a customer. 

But for the retailer? Not so much.

In reality, an increasing number of customers shop online this way, purchasing multiple sizes or styles with the intent of taking advantage of your generous return policies. While it seems an ideal situation for them, it’s highly unfavorable for online retailers because of the additional time and costs associated with this behavior. 

No merchant wants to make the trade-off of losing customers by restricting purchases or returns or swallowing the cost of processing additional RMAs. Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are just around the corner, and though retailers prepare in advance to tackle the large order volumes, they dread what has practically become an eCommerce tradition: bracketing. 

What is bracketing?

Bracketing (aka buy-and-try) is a new “hidden” return problem for retailers that has gained momentum in the last decade. Customers have substituted the fitting rooms in retail locations for at-home try-ons, buying multiple product variations to return the ones they don’t like. The concept is a close companion of another shopping habit, “wardrobing” — where customers buy a product for a special event or occasion and return it after use.

Bracketing has become a costly standard in the fashion, beauty, and even furniture industries, where size, color, and quality often feel like a gamble. Ordering in bulk to find the right fit may seem innocent from the customer’s perspective, but unfortunately, it incurs huge return costs for online retailers. It increases the volume of items returning to the warehouse or fulfillment center and reduces the fresh inventory's holding capacity. Free returns put a massive dent in a retailer’s pocket, demanding more storage and labor without guaranteeing that the returned items will ever find a new shopping cart again.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, each returned item costs retailers $10-20, excluding freight. Imagine how much money your business will lose if bracketing runs rampant during the peak holiday shopping seasons when customers are further motivated by FOMO to pick up products they don’t intend to return.

Fortunately, there are methods to reduce the impact of bracketing during BFCM or at any time of the year. Read on to learn how to protect your store from bracket-happy shoppers.

Importance of a clear return policy to counter bracketing during BFCM

Though there are no surefire ways to prevent bracketing, a few measures exist to slow them down, especially when the holiday season is in full swing.

One way to combat these questionable shopping habits is by developing clear and concise return policies displayed clearly on your website and during checkout. With the right return policy, the chances of customers making so many returns, especially when you are already struggling with colossal order volumes and higher on-time delivery expectations, can be curbed.

Return policies with conditional agreements, such as time limits, non-returnable items, and return costs must be defined and expressed clearly at the time of purchase.

• Identify products in your online store that have been particularly prone to bracketing and create a special policy for them.
• Shorten return windows during high-volume periods like BFCM in order to discourage bracketing and reduce the burden on your support and logistics staff.
• Add nominal returns fees and make them obvious upfront. Even paying a small amount for returns will discourage these practices.
• Be clear about special circumstances where free returns will still be provided to assuage any legitimate concerns about your products.

We recommend testing out more restrictive policies before going all in. You’ll want to balance the reduced costs that come with fewer returns with the loss of business from customers discouraged by less permissible returns. Being clear up front, in any case, will reduce the number of complaints you may receive.

There are a few additional benefits to tightening these policies:

Manage customer expectations better

It’s always advisable to manage your customer’s expectations from the beginning to avoid any misunderstandings in the future. Customers must have all the information they need before making a purchase, including the return windows, product types eligible or ineligible for return, and if there are any restocking fees, to establish clear guidelines for returns. A detailed return policy also encourages customers to make wise purchases and buy only what they need.

Saving time and effort

Returns are costly and time-consuming, and you run short of both when flooded with festive cheer. In addition to being as specific and detailed as possible with your return and refund policy, ensure it’s also displayed prominently at crucial decision points to ensure your customers have all the answers about returns, exchanges, and refunds well in advance. It will reduce incessant WISMO calls to your support team and improve the customer shopping experience.

Minimize fraudulent returns

The chances of fake or fraudulent returns increase when you allow returns, which can double-blow your business’s bottom line. The retailers must endure the cost of shipping and holding and the uncertainty of whether the items will ever be sold again. A clear return and refund policy is a great way to warn customers who always intend to return the items that you reserve the right to refuse returns as a penalty for this shopping behavior.

Reduce cost and retain revenue

Returns can become too costly for your business if you sell cheaply. To minimize the cost of returns and improve customer retention, offer easy exchange options or store credit as a return resolution and include restrictions on what is accepted for exchange and up to what period. For example, if a customer returns a product and lists “color” as the return reason, you can offer a different color of the same product as an exchange.

Offer multiple return options during BFCM and beyond

The team at AfterShip wanted to know about the impact that returns have during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period each year. In 2023, we tracked the returns activities of over 1,400 merchants in order to create specific benchmarks. 

First, we discovered that returns are up year over year. Comparing the holiday shopping period of 2023 to 2022, for instance, we saw an increase of 15% in the number of returns these merchants processed. Clearly, then, returns are on the rise — in part, no doubt, due to practices like bracketing.

However, we saw something else too. Merchants who offer more (or alternative) returns resolutions were able to retain significantly more revenue than those who did not. For instance, offering returns for refund or store credit nets a retained revenue of 15.66%, while allowing exchange for other items or replacement for the same item leads to more than double the retained revenue.

While future merchants are in a position to deny returns altogether – the competition would eat them alive – providing more options for your buyers clearly pays off by diminishing the impact of those returns on your bottom line. And that’s especially true during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period!

How to reduce bracketing and unnecessary returns with AfterShip Returns

AfterShip Returns is a returns automation platform that streamlines the returns experience for your customers and yourself by automating everything from when a return request is raised until it is resolved. The platform enables your organization to set up your own return rules and conditions to avoid overstocking, minimize returns, and reduce costs which become inevitable with better offers and high discounts during BFCM.

With AfterShip Returns, you can counter the increases in bracketing and avoid unnecessary returns with smart eligibility rules for:

• Returns window
• Eligible returns per order
• Non-returnable items
• Eligible items for return
• Allowlist and blocklist settings
• Flexible exchange options

Set up blocklists and non-returnables to avoid unnecessary returns

Bracketing has become a real cost driver. Almost 1/5th of online fashion purchases today include orders with several items of the same size, shape, or color because customers expect a free or cheap return. The BFCM week comes with additional costs and challenges in the form of eCommerce serial returners acting as wardrobers and fitting roomers, who bulk-buy items, keep the ones they like, and return the rest.

Each return represents a loss to your business because of the shipping, warehousing, and environmental costs. If your return policy is unclear and the system of processing returns is inconvenient, you may lose both revenue and customers.

AfterShip Returns provides smart eligibility settings to help you curtail the actions of shoppers who return in bulk and significantly cut down return costs.

• Blocklist allows you to build a list of items ineligible for return, exchange, or refund based on specific criteria like discounted items, product types, product tags, etc., to dissuade customers from overstocking and making returns. You can also blocklist the email addresses of customers you find increasingly prone to making unnecessary returns to automatically reject all their future requests.

• Non-returnables: Are there specific product types and categories that will cost you more to refund than what it will cost you to deliver? Create a list of items not covered under your return or refund policy on specific grounds like product categories, discounted items, return windows for specific product types or tags, and eligible returns per order. It will motivate customers to consciously reflect upon what they are buying and how much they want to buy to avoid making returns afterward.
  

Make exceptions with Allowlists

Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals encourage customers to indulge in impulse buying. 70-80% discount on a piece of clothing may feel nothing to the customers in terms of price point when they load their carts to the brim. Still, specific products, especially consumer electronics, and furniture, can put a major dent in consumers' pockets if they do not get what they expected despite the huge discounts on which they got them.

In the unlikely event that a damaged, defective, or different item is delivered to the customer within a specific time frame, allowlist allows you to make exceptions for particular orders, product types, and customer email addresses. This list overrides all the existing ineligibility rules to let customers quickly make a return request.

Take back control of your returns policy this BFCM

BFCM is a goldmine for boosting sales, but it can also create customer headaches if your returns policy isn't crystal clear. With AfterShip Return’s advanced features, you can set, display, and automate straightforward guidelines for returns, refunds, and exchanges, ensuring customers know exactly what to expect and don’t get caught off guard.

Choose the plan that best serves your business needs and turn returns into new opportunities for sales, profits, customer loyalty, and retention.