How Adidas used authentic consumer reviews to reduce returns
A case study about consumer-generated content in the fashion & apparel industry
Although online sales are going strong at Adidas, return rates still increase every year and far exceed those in brick-and-mortar stores. From all product categories, fashion not only has the highest return rate, but also the highest rate of “intentional returns”—returns from shoppers who intentionally order duplicate items to compare against.
One of the biggest challenges online shoppers face is that it’s often hard to be sure of a product’s exact size, quality of material and fit. Shoppers prefer to try on, touch and feel clothes in person, so it’s no surprise that returns are common when clothes don’t feel or fit as expected.
Unfortunately, handling high volumes of returns is expensive and a significant undertaking for retailers. So when Adidas was about to introduce their two latest products, they wanted to focus their marketing efforts on helping their customers make the right purchase the first time to reduce returns.
