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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

My wife is probably single-highhandedly causing retailers that she favors to fail. I feel for them.

She orders a ton of clothes online and then returns something around 75% of it. They give her free shipping and they take the returns in store at no cost. She prefers to order when there are sales.

What she is doing is completely logical and encouraged by their policies but I do not understand how they make any money?

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Clothing, especially designer or specialty / technical clothing, can be marked up 1-10x. In other words, a jacket that costs $10 to produce might sell for $20 or $100.

Don't worry, they are still making money on your wife.

(This is just based on my experience working for a major outdoor clothing retailer, not any sort of real data)

That's the online equivalent of what I do in store. Every brand has slightly different sizing so I often have to try on edgy brand of short until I find one or two that have sleeves and shoulders that fit. Many brands also use different collar styles. Then I look at different patterns and colors. The end result is that I might try on 5 or 6 things and walk out with one or none.

Yeah I know people like that too. I think the stores prefer those customers to those who never return but rarely shop.

https://www.fastcompany.com/1614648/zappos-best-customers-ar...

Maybe the shipping costs plus the costs to manufacture the clothes she buys are less than what she pays for the clothes she keeps. Or maybe she's an outlier.

Someone returning 75% of the clothing they buy because of a generous return policy is better than nobody buying anything from that retailer at all.

The cost of shipping one item is almost the same as the cost of shipping a stack of items. As long as she's keeping a purchase, the additional cost of shipping+ partial return is small and baked into the pricing model.

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