"In the apparel industry, returns quietly erase margin, distort customer acquisition cost (CAC) and starve lifetime value (LTV). Most apparel companies treat returns as a warehouse problem. They're not. Returns are created upstream by the promises made in ads, by clarity on product pages, by the product itself and by whether reviews help shoppers choose the right size. In a previous role at an outdoor/apparel brand, board-level accountability forced us to run returns from the marketing cockpit."
"To get started, create a simple one-page weekly sheet tracking four core metrics: * CAC (paid and blended) * Assisted revenue (per your attribution model) * LTV at 90 days (or your closest proxy) * Return rate delta (RRD) (the difference between the pilot and baseline return rates in percentage points; negative is good) With your metrics in place, identify two high-volume, high-return categories-such as outerwear and pants-and establish a baseline using data from the past four to eight weeks."
Returns erode margin, distort customer acquisition cost, and reduce lifetime value across apparel retailers. Returns originate upstream from ad promises, product-page clarity, product attributes, and review-guided size selection. Implement a weekly four-metric dashboard tracking CAC (paid and blended), assisted revenue, 90-day LTV, and return-rate delta to connect storytelling to margin. Establish baselines for two high-volume, high-return categories and measure completed returns with exchanges separated from refunds to reveal net kept revenue. Evaluate creative, conversion-rate optimization, and product-adjacent efforts against those metrics. Improve storefronts with message-matched landing pages that repeat ad claims and include a Who It’s For/Not For box.
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