Web stores are tired of some of the customers using clothing and other items to return them. Together with the sector organization Thuiswinkel.org, they are starting a trial with labels that are attached to products. Only if the label is still attached to the product, it may be returned within 14 days.
According to the online stores, it is quite normal for some of the customers to, for example, wear clothes for an evening and then return them. “It is really terrible what you are going through,” says Belinda Kalkman of the Onlinemerkkleding.nl webshop. She has been using the so-called return vignettes for a few months now. “Worn clothes with stains, perfume on the clothes, sometimes there is still an earring on a piece of clothing or a key in a trouser pocket. In the summer after the festivals there is sometimes still mud on the legs.”
Consumers have the right to return products, but then the item must be in its original condition. Online retailers find it difficult to demonstrate that a product has been used. “We say we won’t accept the return item, but then you’ll be told it really hasn’t been worn,” says Kalkman. “Then you get such a discussion. You can get sleepless nights as an entrepreneur.”
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