Zalando Says “Enough” to Serial Returners

Earlier this year, we reported on Zalando’s decision to cut its return window from 100 to 30 days and make its loyalty program free. Now, the company is taking another step in reshaping its return policy – this time targeting customers who abuse the system.

For 16 years, Zalando made returns ridiculously easy. Order whatever you want, try it at home, send back what doesn’t work. It was basically bringing the fitting room to your living room.

But here’s the thing – while most people used this responsibly, some didn’t. And Zalando got tired of it.

It’s Not Just Zalando’s Problem

This isn’t unique to them. Pretty much every fashion e-commerce company deals with customers who go overboard with returns. The result? Popular items disappear faster, operations get messy, and there’s unnecessary environmental damage from all that shipping back and forth.

Zalando decided they wanted to lead the change instead of just complaining about it.

Here’s What Actually Happens

First, you get a warning email if your return rate gets crazy high.

Think of it as Zalando saying “Hey, we noticed you return almost everything – maybe check out our size guides?”

Keep ignoring that and continuing to return most of your orders? Then comes the serious stuff. Your shopping gets restricted, and in extreme cases, your account gets paused for a full year.

But here’s the key part – you can still access your account, return anything you’ve already ordered, and browse around. You just can’t buy new stuff.

These restrictions hit only a tiny fraction of customers. For everyone else, absolutely nothing changes.

Making Shopping Smarter

Zalando isn’t just playing defense here. They’re actually trying to help people buy the right stuff from the start.

They’ve added:

• videos and 360-degree photos to product pages
• made descriptions way more detailed
• there is also augmented reality features where you can virtually try things on

Since wrong sizes cause most returns, they’ve built tools that warn you if something runs small or large. They’ll even give you personalized size recommendations based on what you’ve bought before and your measurements.

The coolest part? They’re working on a virtual fitting room where you create a 3D version of yourself and see how different sizes actually look on your body.

Want better recommendations? Update your size profile. Tell them what fits well, what doesn’t, or add your measurements. The more they know, the better their suggestions get.

The Bottom Line

Zalando says this is about being fair and sustainable. By dealing with the few people who abuse the system, they can keep offering easy returns to everyone who uses them properly.

And they’re not stopping here – more changes are coming to support this shift.

Based on Zalando’s official statement