The cheapest return is the one that never ships.
Roughly 42% of fashion returns are size-related - a category of loss you can act on before checkout rather than absorb afterwards.
Bracketing is a rational response to a page that won't answer.
When a product page cannot tell someone which size fits, ordering two and returning one is the sensible move. The shopper is not being difficult - they are routing around missing information, and the merchant pays for the detour twice in freight, once in processing labour, and again in the sellability of whatever comes back creased.
Size charts have been on these pages for two decades and the return rate has not moved, because a chart transfers the work to the shopper rather than doing it. Free returns made the detour cheaper for the shopper and more expensive for the brand, which is why the behaviour spread.
The interventions that actually change the number all happen before the order: a size recommendation specific to that garment, an honest confidence signal when the shopper is between sizes, and a visual that sets an accurate expectation of how the piece will sit. Garu is those three things in one widget, which is the whole reason it exists.
- The 42%
- Size-related returns are the largest addressable slice of fashion returns.
- Cost per return
- Freight both ways, processing labour, and lost sellability on what comes back.
- Why charts failed
- They hand the measurement work to the shopper instead of doing it.
- What moves it
- Garment-specific sizing, an honest confidence signal, and an accurate visual - before checkout.