5 Big Questions About Online Shopping

More online shopping means more returns. If you can’t try out or try on an item in person, you’re more likely to end up with something you don’t really want. Experts estimate that shoppers return about 25 percent of what they buy online. They return about 8 percent of what they buy in stores.

Returning online orders has gotten easier. Many online retailers don’t charge customers for sending back unwanted goods. But many returned items never go back on sale. Instead, they’re often thrown out, even if they’re still brand-new.

When you send back a product, the company already owes you a refund. It costs the company even more to ship the item to a warehouse so workers can determine if it can be sold again.

“Every person that touches that item is adding cost, but the company doesn’t earn any value,” explains Gad Allon. He’s a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Because of those extra costs, Allon says, most brand-new items that get returned are never sold again as new.

 It’s unlikely that the original retailer will sell them again as new. But some items do get a second life. For example, many items returned to giant retailers like Amazon end up being sold again at discount stores. 

Retailers deal with an especially huge amount of returned clothing. That’s partly because many shoppers buy clothes or footwear in multiple sizes or colors. They pick the items that look and fit best, then return the rest. 

“Because it’s so easy to return, we definitely over-buy,” Allon explains. 

1. In the answer to question 1, why does the author put the word trillion in italics? 
2. What details do you notice in the cartoon? What message do you think the cartoonist is sending?
3. Why do online retailers often decide to throw away returned products?