How To Combat Slow Returners In Your Online Store In 2025

Despite making up for only 11% of e-commerce, slow returners generate 24% of returns for online stores.

If you are wondering how you can combat slow returners and minimise their impact on your inventory and shipping costs – this guide is for you.

In this article, we’ll go over what slow returners are, talk a bit about demographics, and discuss how you can approach the solution.

💡 The data we use in this article is based on our investigation into the topic from our survey of 2,000 consumers in the UK.

TL;DR

• Slow returners are customers who delay the return of their product for an extended period of time, usually over 10 days.
• These slow returns are a problem for retailers since extended return windows affect inventory cycles and cash flow during peak season.
• The main reason why shoppers return slowly is because they are feeling buyer’s remorse from an impulse purchase.
• The best ways to deal with slow returners are to start charging them for returns (to recoup costs of returns), incentivising faster returns with a free returns option and adding more return options (e.g., return to locker).

What Are Slow Returners?

Slow returners* are shoppers who delay returning their online purchases for extended periods, usually over 10 days after receiving the product.

These consumers might have ordered a product they were not sure about in the first place and then took too long (can even be weeks) before issuing a refund to your store.

➡️ Our data from our 2024 Annual Shopper Research also shows that nearly a third of slow returners take advantage of cashback or rewards programs before returning the items to your store.  

According to our findings, the main demographic behind slow returns is Gen Z shoppers, who make up 39.9% of slow returns with millennials being 35.1% of slow returners.

*For the purposes of our research, not all slow returning customers were classified a Slow Returner. Sometimes they were defined by another, more prominent, behaviour. For example, many returners were given a tag of Serial Returner for their excessive spending, but do also frequently return slowly.

Why Slow Returners Are An Issue For Retailers

Slow returns are a problem for e-commerce merchants because extended return windows affect inventory cycles and cash flow.

As a result, slow returners are projected to account for £5.8 billion (or 21%) of all online non-food returns in the UK in 2024.

The problem with this phenomenon hits the hardest during peak season, where slow returns that are late can derail inventory management and make it harder to manage your cash flow.

Why Do Some Shoppers Return Slow?

The main reason why some consumers are returning slower than others is because they are feeling buyer’s remorse from an impulse purchase.

After questioning hundreds of slow returners, our team found that slow returners are not so different from average shoppers when it comes to finding better prices or managing expectations.

However, we found secondary reasons why consumers return slowly, such as:

• Using credit card rewards or cashback programs to personally profit from purchases and returns.
• Over-ordered just to reach a minimum spend by purchasing and returning some of the products in the order.
• Needing time to first try out the products extensively before finally returning them. Can also be wardrobing, where they use the expensive product for an event and return it afterwards for free, or even staging, where they pose with purchased items for social media before returning.
• Forgetting to return after downloading the return label. 20% of slow returners admitted to this.

How To Deal With Slow Returners In Your Online Store?

You can deal with slow returns in your e-commerce store by:

• Charging shoppers for returning products (paid returns).
• Encouraging faster returns through SMS and email notifications.
• Incentivising faster returns by offering free returns or return-to-store credit.
• Introducing more return options, such as returns to lockers and more drop-off points.
• Making the returns experience easier with paperless returns.
• Offering the choice to pre-purchase the returns label.
• Shortening your returns policy window.

Let’s go over these solutions to slow returns in a bit more detail: 👇

Start Charging For Returns (Paid Returns)

The best way to deal with slow returns is to start charging them for returns.

Paid returns are when you ask consumers to pay a fee to return their product to cover the costs of returns.

Although half of consumers are discouraged from making returns if they had to pay a fee, our research found that 61.9% of slow returners would have no problem paying for a return.

💡 You can also customise your return options so customers only have to pay for their return if they are returning it slowly.

We recommend this approach to the retailers we work with when they ask us how they can deal with slow returners and serial returners.

In fact, our research found that there’s a 32% rise in paid returns since 2023.

Results: Online merchants we work with reduced the cost of their returns by up to 57% after implementing paid returns.

💡 Fact: We have not experienced any retailers saying that their sales have dropped since the introduction of paid returns to their store.

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Here are some of the benefits of adopting paid returns:

• Returned costs are covered so your store is not on the losing end from slow returns during peak season.
• Slow returners are incentivised to remember their free returns window (if you plan to have one) or else face a small penalty.
• As for all shoppers, paid returns would encourage them to consider how certain they are about purchasing your products impulsively.

Interested in how much your brand can save with paid returns? Feel free to check out our Paid Returns calculator.

Encourage Faster Returns

You could also trial reminding customers to drop off their return in the first few days after initiating it.

So once they have downloaded their label and signalled their intent to return, it might be beneficial for retailers to give them a nudge to get it done, giving goods the best chance of resell.

Through ZigZag, retailers can send out SMS reminders to try and prompt the drop off.

On the other hand though it is worth noting that 20% of customers have actually forgotten to send a return back despite intending to do so at some point in their life. So you need to balance getting returns back earlier with maybe causing a few extra returns that might otherwise have been forgotten about.

Incentivise Faster Returns

The second best thing you can do on your online store is to try and incentivise faster returns from your shoppers.

As free returns are important to 38% of customers, returning products free of cost would appeal to some slow returners and might change their behaviour.

You can incentivise faster returns by setting the following return rules inside a returns management platform like ZigZag:

• Offering free returns if customers return within a certain timeframe.
• Offering return-to-store credit with extra credit for shoppers who return quickly.

💡 Did you know that slow returners are the most likely cohort (93%) to read your returns policy?

This is why your brand can catch the customers’ attention with free returns and generous refunds to store credit if they return quickly.

Introduce More Returns Options (Such As Returns To Lockers)

One of the reasons why shoppers might be returning products slowly is due to inconvenient return locations.

This is why the experts at ZigZag Global recommend offering more return options, such as the ‘’big 5’’ as we call them:

• Home collection
• Post Office
• Drop-off points
• Lockers
• Your store network

In our research, we found that return to lockers and Post Office returns were the preferred methods by slow returners compared to the other cohorts of returners.

💡 ZigZag Global also offers in-store drop-off kiosks that are hassle-free for customers.

Introduce printer-less returns

It is also vital to include printer-less return options.

In fact, 90% of consumers surveyed by ZigZag believe that a printerless returns option, such as a digital QR code, is important for a retailers to offer.

Many consumers, particularly younger shoppers, won't have easy access to a printer to get a physical copy of their returns label. This may result in slow returns as consumers wait for an opportune moment to head into work or a nearby library.

Offer The Option To Pre-Purchase The Returns Label

Your online store can minimise the cost of returns by offering shoppers the option to pre-purchase their returns label.

That means customers would be paying a small fee at the checkout for having a free return if they wish to return their product.

We found that 55.2% of online shoppers are unwilling to pay that small fee at purchase to guarantee free or cheaper returns later.

Despite that, slow returners seemed to be open about that idea, with 46.4% of them being likely to consider the idea so they could reduce return costs later.

Shorten your returns policy window

Distance Selling Regulations give customers 14 days to initiate a return and a further 14 days to get the return back. So, you could consider really pushing the 14 days, to create some urgency.

Out of the 130 top UK retailers we studied for our Benchmark Report, 16% promote a 14-day returns window on their website. Some retailers and even carriers ask their customers to return within 7 days after downloading the label.

This is very much retailer dependent. Decathlon are one of the few UK retailers who offer a 365 day return window, which makes sense as customers need time to test their new bike or sports equipment. However, a fast fashion retailer might need to prioritise getting returns back quickly if stock is only in season for 4-6 weeks.

Case Study: New Look & Their Convenient Drop-Off Kiosks

New Look was struggling with high costs of returns (especially during peak season).

This is when the brand partnered with ZigZag Global to find ways to minimise their cost of returns and make the returns process seamless for end-users.

With our award-winning returns platform, New Look introduced free and paid return options, where the in-store returns were free of charge, and a charge of £2.50 for paid returns.

The brand also incorporated ZigZag’s in-store drop-off kiosks in 2023 to delight their shoppers with how easy they are to work with.

The merchant transformed its returns experience and has:

• Received a 20% decrease in return status queries when the improved tracking was implemented.
• Doubled their in-store returns via the combination of easy in-store returns and paid online returns.
• Increased their rating from 4.3/5 to 4.7/5 on Trustpilot.

Next Steps: Reduce The Impact Of Slow Returns With ZigZag Global

Even if you incorporate paid returns, add more return options, and offer free returns, there will still be shoppers who return slowly.

But with returns management software like ZigZag Global, your store can at least minimise its impact on cash flow and inventory.

Our returns solution can help you minimise the impact of slow returns with the following features:

• Paid returns so you can cover the costs of your return.
• Free returns, as long as they come to your store and return the products in person.
• Convenient drop-off kiosks in your store so you can make the returns experience as seamless as possible.
• Paperless returns so shoppers do not have to print their returns labels.
• The option to pre-purchase the return label if consumers are sure that they will return the product.

Book a demo with our team to learn more about how our software can help you deal with slow returners and serial returners!

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