There is a set of figures that are more illustrative than the debate between “businesses or consumers”. Some women's shops have reduced freight costs by almost 30 per cent, while the rate of return has fallen by only 3 per cent. In other words, the orders that had been “responded” had come to “reciprocally, first film” and they had contributed far less than the share of the cost behind them。
The rate of return of women's clothing has climbed from around 50% to 78% in the last two years. The problem, however, is that the pot has been pinned on one side — whether it's cursing a merchant for dog meat or being too easy to buy. I prefer to take it as a business issue: a dress that runs from top to bottom, how money moves, and whose costs fall. Most of you would agree that 80% of the return rate is not the result of a personal problem, but of a set of rules。
Let's get this straight. Business is hard. It doesn't mean nobody buys clothes. The data of the national statistical office were there: in the first half of 2026, the national retail volume of online commodities increased by 6. 2 per cent over the same period. The demand for clothes on the line is really expanding, and there is no “feminine consumption deficit”。
That's interesting. Demand continues to rise, with millions of old shops closing down. Neither the consumer will pay, nor will it evaporate, and it must be stuck in the middle. The problem with an industry in which the demand is high and the sellers are down in groups is not essentially one of the two ends of the bargain, but one of the rules of distribution in the middle。
Of course, it's not objective to say that there's nothing wrong with merchants. It's a luminous layout in the airroom, where the hand is loose, and it's a 100-percent sign of silk, and it's not until it's in the water, it's called the original, it's all a copy. I fully agree with the fact that these non-conforming operations are real and that consumers return goods, often forced to stop the damage。
However, this statement explains “why there is a return” and “why the return rate has been reversed in three years”. A sheep-head-to-dog trap, 10 years ago. What makes two or three years when the return rate is 50% to 80%? It doubles in a matter of a few days, and it changes in the back. It is not the conscience of the merchants that changes, but the cost of the return itself。
The key variable is freight insurance. It had only a few cents in its early years of insurance, and today, women's clothing has generally risen to four or five dollars, higher than the real shipping costs of the merchants. For the buyer, it almost flattened the threshold for the return of the goods — the cost of the return of the goods was not paid for by itself — and it became a logical operation to “same clothes, red, black, s-code, one by one, one by one, one by one, and the rest by mail”. The internet purchase was completely used as a free-testing room。
Once the friction of the returned goods is wiped out by the rules, the boundary of conduct collapses. It's not a moral downturn, it's a perfectly normal reaction: if you make the return free, it's gonna be a lot more than 70 or 80 percent。
It's more than enough to fold "refund only" and the platform's price and investment. There is a lot of money to be refunded, and the most radical, and there is a lot of justice. And even worse, you put a bill in a store, and you push a cheaper similar payment under your nose, and you probably fall back. The return rate went up and the merchant's promotion fee burned for nothing. The platform sold the same traffic twice, the merchant's wallet was stung twice, the more expensive it was, most of the closed shops were dragged down。
Around here, the worst part of the business has come to light — gains and costs that cannot be borne by the same person。
Following the chain: consumers get a taste of “free try-through”; the platform gets a user-reserved, higher gmv, plus a round of well-receipted adverts, which earns a share of the price; and the rest of the account — freight insurance, secondary logistics, unchartered inspection, devalued seasons, and even refund disputes — is at the head of the business。
A set of rules that allow a to enjoy the benefits and b to pay for them is in itself an invitation to all to use the benefits to the full. Consumers have given up a few more, rationally; it is no surprise that the wool party has taken a lot of risk and that professional groups have taken advantage of it. There is no need for someone whose humanity has suddenly gone bad, and the rules are there, which amounts to an invitation. The freight-forwarding groups that have been taken over over the years are just the few that have picked up this invitation the hardest。
So back to the question: 80% return rate, who is responsible
The platform is the one that truly holds rule-making power and the largest net beneficiary of the game. To whom, how much, how much, how much to pay, how to refund, how to split the flow at the price, these switches are in the hands of the platform. The only thing a merchant can do is to passively protect itself against the cost of freight, but it will not disappear. It will simply change its name: once freight risk has ceased, more than half of the return applications are replaced by “quality problems”, freight is the same as the merchant, and the dispute becomes more intrusive。
Hitting a board on a merchant — the phrase you and i used to hear: “beware of the consumer, take the quality” — listens to justice, but actually moralizes a systemic problem. Businesses are being squeezed in low-priced flows, and they have to press their fabric and work, and the more rough the goods are, the more they are being sent back, the more they are having to exchange the flow at lower prices, and the less the good coin is being squeezed out. This cycle continues with slogans, because the power switches of the cycle are not in the hands of the merchants。
Looking back, my judgment is quite straightforward. Freight insurance will continue to be cut off in bulk by women vendors, and the platform will use algorithms to divide users quietly and the number of refunds will be restricted in secret; women's shops will shrink in the direction of “low up, small bulk, orphan, well-known” and will no longer be willing to gamble on big money. But as long as the rules remain intact — as long as the party that manufactures the returned goods does not have to pay the corresponding price — the downloading of the stores and the influx of new ones will result in the same rate of return。
The real solution to this business has never been to educate businesses to be more “informed”, but to allow the platform to put costs and benefits back on the same person. Who is entitled to the free return of the goods shall share the bill. This business can't do it, it can only do it by a change of rules。
References
Growth of total retail sales of social goods in the first half of 2026 by 1. 3 per cent
