What eCommerce sellers need to know about Holiday Gift Returns

In this podcast, Adam Shaffer, Phelps United President, and Scott Baradell, Founder and CEO of Idea Grove and author of his new book, Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World, discuss the behavior predicted for Americans in 2022 when it comes to Holiday Gifts returns.

Phelps United ran a survey about Holiday Gift Returns where 600 U.S. adults were asked about their expectations surrounding eCommerce gifts and returns this holiday season. The findings show that 52% of Americans plan to return holiday gifts purchased online, making flexible return policies a must for merchants. This and other findings are discussed by these two experts in the eCommerce and Technology fields.

You can see the findings of this survey here: https://phelpsunited.com/phelps-unite...

Transcript

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Hello, I'm Adam Schaffer and I'm the president of Phelps United. We're a brand accelerator helping brands accelerate and navigate their business on Amazon, um, and other marketplaces. But Amazon being the largest marketplace we spend to spend mu much of our time talking about Amazon. We're currently managing over 1500 products, um, from 30 different manufacturers, and we're in 10 different product categories. Today we're here to talk about our holiday gift return survey, which we ran a few weeks ago, and we surveyed about 600 people, and we'll get into that in more detail, but it was really telling and, um, surprising in many aspects. Uh, today we're with Scott Bardel, founder and c e o of Idea Grove PR Agency to discuss our findings. Scott is the author of a new book called Trust Signals Brand Building in a Post-Truth World. Hello Scott and welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam. I'm really happy to be here. Hey, Scott, I really appreciate you being here. Um, you know, this book is quite interesting and it's, you know, kind of interesting how it comes to play with regard to returns. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and the book? Yes, well, um, you know, I came from a journalism background and then went into public relations, corporate PR for many years. Uh, I've had my own PR agency, I Dear Grove, uh, for 18 years now. And I, I looked at how, um, you know, how people come to trust brands. It pr used to rely on kind of just mostly media relations. And I started thinking it's not really about the tactic of media relations so much as what you're trying to achieve with that, which is trying to earn credibility and trust in your brand. And so I started looking big picture at it and so wrote this book, trust Signals that said, yeah, getting media coverage is one great way to get credibility for your brand, but there's a lot of others. And if you start thinking of them all together, you can think about which ones are best for your brand. So in that context, uh, e-commerce sites have known forever that if you put a badge on your checkout page that says free returns, then you're more likely to close that deal. You're gonna have less card abandonment. Same for money back guarantees. Same for having a Norton Security Seal or a Better Business Bureau Seal. These are all examples of what I call trust signals or, or, or little evidence points that you're using to tell that buyer to reassure them that they can trust you to to do business with them. And, and so that's why, uh, we thought, I know you and I thought this was a really interesting topic, what's been happening with this topic of returns and easy returns or flexible returns this holiday season, which I think has been taken for granted, but now some retailers are kind of rethinking their approach to returns this. Year. You know, that's for sure. And you know, you talk about trust signals and, and do consumers trust who they're buying from and do they trust that they're gonna be taken care of all along the way? And and that's one of the, the huge benefits of why people buy on Amazon is cuz they feel this trust that, you know, if they get it and something's not And there's not a lot of friction there. There's not a lot of pushback. Um, it it just happens and it's, it's automated. And, and so, you know, one of the many, many reasons people do buy from Amazon bought, nobody likes returns. And you know, as a, as a seller, and we're, we're a seller on Amazon, and you know, we're an agency on Amazon, nobody likes to get returns. But it's really, really important if you want to have long-term value for customers that they need to be able to know that if something is not right, whether it's not working, it's just not what they wanted, that they could return it and not have to go through pain, suffering and possibly fees. And, and you know, I think we were both seeing in the media that there was a lot of talk about big box stores, other online sellers now potentially charging customers to return their products. And you know, we're kind of at the holiday point right now, not to try and date this too much, but you know, this is the time when you're gonna see the most returns. And, and so we put this survey together. I mean, you you helped with their survey. I mean, tell us a little bit about the survey and, and how we got this, you know, organized. Yes. Well, we used a tool called Pole Fish, which is a really effective tool for polling and getting surveys of, of different demographic groups or, or broader audiences. Uh, pretty quickly we looked specifically in this survey at, uh, uh, individuals whose families had a disposable income of, of $50,000 a year or more. Um, that was the main pre-screening we did on it. Um, so in, it's a pretty good reflection of kind of the general consumer population. Uh, 600 people, about half and half men and women and, and most demographic groups is pretty, pretty sorted, uh, in keeping with the, the demographics across the country. And what it came back and said was a couple big insights. Um, people are returning gifts and and expect to, and the majority, 52% said they expect to return at least one gift. And Minnie said they expect it to return more than one gift. So it's. Becomes, I I expect my family to return everything I buy them <laugh>. I don't think I, I've never nailed it, ever.<Laugh> ever. Well, it, it's just, I I saw a consumer report survey from, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago, and I believe the number was more like a third. So it's definitely been a, something where more and more people just come to expect it, which I know can present more of a burden to retailers. But the other side of that is, it's, it's a reason why there's way more e-com purchases than ever before. It's because of this kind of sense of reassurance. So, you know, it's short-term gain versus long-term brand damage. Potentially. If you say, well, I'm gonna have stricter return policies so I don't lose money on all these returns, well me, that might cost you next year in, in the years ahead because the overall volume has gone up. So the survey asks people about, Hey, do you expect to, uh, return gifts this year? How many do you expect to return? What kind of gifts do you expect to return? But it also asks things like, uh, what do you think? How, how important is a return policy to you? And more than three quarters of respondents said they look for, and they study the, the return policies, uh, when they purchase a gift. So that's important. And they also said they look specifically for things like, uh, free shipping on returns and uh, things like being able to return to a physical store for, for, uh, e-commerce sites that allow that or enable that, or just things like having, uh, a shipping return, shipping label included. Just things that make it more convenient. Uh, all of those things, people in the surveys that they look for and they really value. And if that's the case, you've gotta think about what if you didn't have those things? What were you, what if you were the retailers said, no, there's gonna be a restocking fee or you have to return it in 48 hours. You know, another of the things that that came up in the survey is, uh, people said they liked, um, the flexibility to not have to return for 30 days, which is a, a pretty common policy. And it's also one of those that's come into to question, and more retailers are saying, uh, 30 days is too long a window. However, those same people and the respondent said the great majority, uh, returned their gifts by a week after Christmas. So they just like the flexibility to be able to return in a month. The great majority are returning much sooner than that. So how much are you really losing by being. Strict? Break the big window? Yeah, no, I think, you know, you open the window up because they're not returning it. You get some flooding in, but not that many. Right. But, but again, like it's, it's, it's a tough, it's a tough thing because, you know, retailers are struggling, um, trying to make money. Uh, the pressure is definitely on the margins for sure. And, you know, what do you do with all these returns that they get? It's not that easy. There's a cost to take it back. There's a cost to reprocess it, and then can you sell it as new or do you have to sell it as refurbished, open boxed, um, used. And, and so there's a lot of rules and laws about that. And you know, there's a large volume as, uh, the volume's increased online. Um, but when you're buying for other people, it's hard, you know, when you're buying for yourself, it's hard to get it right all the time with sizes, but when you're buying for other people, it's very difficult. I know that, uh, something I've seen a lot of coverage on recently is this idea of bracketing where someone, particularly with clothes and our survey showed that clothes were the most returned gift. Is that, is that it's, it's not uncommon for someone to buy three or four or five in different sizes or different colors with the intention, oh, I'm gonna return four of these five. That's my wife.<Laugh>. So the question is, would you rather have that or not have that as, as a retailer? I'm curious, uh, Adam, as someone who's been an expert in this space and and around e-commerce for a really long time, overall, what have you seen in terms of what's happened with returns? Ha and what has been your advice in terms of sh based on evolving consumer habits? Should there be or has there been an evolving of how retailers respond and how should they respond to, to these changing habits? Well, um, it's, it's a great question. It's a difficult question. Yeah, because I'm on both sides. I'm a consumer and I'm a seller and I'm helping brands. And like I said, nobody likes returns, but, um, how do you keep customers coming back week after week, month after month, year after year? And that is, you know, having lenient policies really makes it easy. You do need customers to not be abusive. And, and so the bracketing of stinks a little bit, you know, but you know, you need to tell a story online and, and in the retail store, but online more so to make it as easy as possible for people to figure it out and understand, is this the right product for me? Is this gonna solve the right problem I have and is this gonna fit? And, um, you need to do that with imagery, video, um, copy. You need to look at reviews and address people's reviews when they have complaints to make sure that you're addressing does it work with this, does it not work with this? And the more upfront you could be, the lower your return rates will be. You also need to understand if you have low quality products, um, you're probably going to get higher returns. And, and so you, you, you know, quality and the product is quite important because people get it and they go, wow, I didn't think it would be like this. It's a little, you know, cheesy or, you know, a little, you know, low end. I thought it was gonna be different. So you, you gotta be fair, you gotta be open, you gotta give great, great information on the, either the Amazon product page or your Shopify website or wherever you're talking about the product. And the more video, the better, you know, the more close-ups, the better. The more it works with this and it doesn't work with this, the better. But I think by not letting people return their products, you're gonna wind up going back and forth and having issues with that customer. It doesn't just end with, okay, I'm not gonna return it. They're gonna try and, you know, maybe stop the, the charge on the credit card and then you have to go back for the charge back or they're gonna wind up putting a bad review and you're gonna, it's gonna wind up hurting future sales. So if you want good reviews, if you wanna not have that overhead of having to go back and forth with the customers, figure out how to take the products back and figure out an outlet for you to be able to sell and maximize what you can get from those products. That's a really good point. It it, it, it makes me think of, you know, the fact that if you are really smart about, um, in, in your, in your product pages, how you're describing the having imagery that maybe shows something at from all angles and give someone really a lot of confidence in what they're getting, it would, obviously you would think that there's gonna be a, a smaller return rate on something I buy for myself than on something someone buys for me because I know what I want more than someone who's buying for me. So I wonder if there's, if the gap between the rate returns on a gift for a product versus when it's purchased by themselves, if the, if the, if the difference in that gap, if I'm probably over making this too complex, but if the difference in that gap reflects how good that retailer is at explaining their product and what they do, in other words, I'm not necessarily, it's not gonna help me as much. Help me some, but lemme help me as much in giving you a gift to have all that information at my disposal. But if I'm buying it for myself, if you provide me enough information, unless I'm doing something like bracketing, if I'm really just trying to buy the right gift in the right size, so if you're providing me enough information, that should dramatically reduce my return rate. Right? It it does. Definitely more so for yourself. Yeah, because gifts, gifts are still, you think, you know the person <laugh> and you think you know what they're gonna want. And it could be that they just, you know, you told, you told your great story and people just like, I don't want this, I want this. And that's what happens here in my house. I mean, we, you know, like I said, I never really nailed it. I buy stuff and then secretly it goes back and they don't tell me, and then I see something else <laugh>, you know, a couple of weeks later, so they don't hurt my feelings. But, you know, sometimes it's just not what they wanted <laugh> and um, in some cases they'll buy it again and not return it. But in many cases they'll um, you know, they'll return it to buy something different. And, and, and so, you know, I think, you know, the first point, and you know, the first kind of insight that we learned from our survey was that consumers are more likely to return than not. That it, you know, that was, that was it. And you had mentioned a 52% number, was that right? That's right. 50 per 2% of respondents said they expected to return at least one gift. You know, that's, um, <laugh>, that's more than half the people, man, that's, that's a lot of returning. So, you know, that's why there's a lot of action after the, the Christmas holiday. I mean, people are returning stuff and hopefully buying more stuff and buying even bigger stuff, which is another part of returning, you're hoping that when they return things, they are buying and they're buying bigger. Um, and that happens quite often. So the return season is a big deal because you're, you're gonna get some incremental sales, but you gotta get the stuff back and you gotta separate the good from the bad and resell again. Absolutely. Yeah. I I think that, um, you, you had also in the survey you said it showed that, um, 68% of respondents expected to receive at least three gifts and uh, 25% were saying five and even 10 gifts or more. So if you're expecting, if that much of the, the gift giving is happening online, gosh, if only one is returned, you're doing pretty good, right? Cuz there was a fair amount of respondents who said they expect to return three or more, or five or more. And, and I know people are going to retail much more now after Covid, um, than ever before. I mean, like, it's really fun to go out again and see things, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of us are still buying online. Like, I, I really don't go and, you know, not just looking at myself, but so many people I know are not going into the big retailers and waiting online and trying to schlep around the store. They just buy it online and, um, whether they're bracketing or they know what they want, they're, they're buying online. So, um, you know, huge, huge. And and I think what's great is that there are a lot of retailers that are hybrid that are selling online and they're selling retail. And, and so the, it gives, you know, customers a lot of options. Well, you know, the, the something that's been happening for some time now, uh, known as showrooming is something a lot of people are doing now that they're going to the stores. They're not necessarily going to the stores to buy. Maybe they want the experience of going to the mall and so forth, but they might, unfortunately, what we see at a lot of retailers is they're still struggling with staffing and they're still struggling with, um, trained training the staff say at a electronic store, places like that. And in the past, whereas you used to, might you maybe you go to a store and expect to have all your questions answered. Um, you know, to your point about having a lot of good information on a product page, you're more likely to get the information you need to feel confident about a purchase online than at a physical location in many cases. So it would lend to, Hey, let me go see what this looks like, but, but I'll, I'll go ahead and research it and, and buy it on Amazon. Yeah, no, for sure. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm a hundred percent there. We'll go see something and then we don't want to deal with the weight in the store. We, you know, we go back home and buy it online. And a lot of times is it for the better price? You know? Sure, definitely you can, my, you can go online, you can find a better price, but sometimes it's just, I, I don't want to deal with it. I don't wanna carry it outta here. I don't want to, you know, I just want it delivered to my place. And, and so that's a big, a big deal. Um, you know, what's also big online right now is, is picking it up at the store so you can do curbside and, you know, we, we go to Dick's Sporting Goods a lot and we'll buy it online and then we'll go there and it's waiting for us, you know, with the salesperson out, you know, side handing it to us so we don't have to go in. Love it. You know, I think it's nice. Yeah. That's, that's Target does. That's my wife's favorite. Yeah, she, my wife loves to do that too, um, as my credit card has shown. But <laugh>, but, you know, I, I'm thinking about this, this larger issue of, of just kind of, are you going to accept, you know, consumer habits that are changing tied to technology or not? It reminds me way back, like, one of my first PR clients was a, an app that ultimately had 40 million downloads called Shop Savvy. It was one of the first barcode scanning apps. So back in the day, like 2007, 2008, you'd take your phone and you'd, you'd scan the barcode on a product in store and it would shoot back around a lot of results. And it might say, what's the same product cost on Amazon or on the Walmart down the street or whatever. And when this first started, when this first started happening and getting media coverage and, and notoriety and so forth, there were actually stores like Target and others that when they saw someone doing it, they would literally kick somebody out of the store. <laugh>. I'm like, that's not, that is not a sustainable reaction to No, not at all. Technological progress. Right. And, and, and I think staying on top of the trends, and I think it's one of the ways that you, uh, are helping the, the, the companies, uh, uh, and the brands you work with. Well, well, what I'm worried about is if, if everybody plays hardball and charge its customers to return products, it's going to leave a bad taste in customer's mouse. some might not return it at all, some will return it and take the pain some and maybe more than some are gonna do some bad things. They're going to leave bad reviews both on the product, because people will do it on the product, and they'll do it on your store. You'll do it on, if you have an Amazon store, they'll do it on your seller account. If you have your own, you know, online shop, they're gonna give you a bad review and to try and undo those bad reviews after all the effort and time it takes to get review these days, I mean, it is not easy to get reviews because you have to be, you know, again, on your own shop of Isight, you could be a little bit more risque to get reviews and ask people for positive reviews and, and, and incent them to do it. But on Amazon, you have to be incredibly careful about not asking people to leave good reviews, but to leave reviews. And you can't incent them in any way to do it. There are programs they have to help you, but it's very, very, very, very hard. And, um, you, you earn those positive reviews, you get a couple of bad reviews. It is awful. And you know, when, when the UBS guy drops it in the mud and you got a bad review, because that's like, it drives me nuts. And you gotta work to get that review taken off. And there's a lot of effort that goes into that too. But, you know, it's gotta be worth it to take the stuff back then to destroy your, your brand and your business by getting one in, you know, one in no store reviews. You know, it's so true. And, and Amazon has taken so much grief for fake reviews. I think they, they had said it one, there was a study a couple years ago that said that like in the electronics category, for example, there was an estimate that like, uh, over a third of reviews were, were fake. And so as a result, Amazon has really worked hard to, to, um, stamp those out and to, to crack. Oh, they, they. Cracked down on this police, it, it's still there, but they police it a lot. I mean, they've thrown billion dollar, billion dollar brands off of Amazon born on Amazon brands and, um, for messing around with that and, and violating their terms, uh, of service. And it, it, you know, there's no coming back. So, yeah, you know, what, what do you do when that happens? You, you know, game over. So you, you just, you wanna play it right. You also wanna be ethical and not do that. So for the bad guys to try and do that kind of stuff, you know, you know, bad things will happen ultimately, and you, you know, if you play it straight might be a little more difficult, but you gotta, you'll. Learn it. The FTC has gotten involved too. Um, and I think they gave a 5 million fine for the first time for, uh, what's called review gating, which you were alluding to, which is only asking, uh, people with positive experiences to leave reviews. And, uh, there's a, a brand, uh, clothing brand that was basically when people were leaving negative reviews on their website, they would just not display them and would only display the positive ones. So there's a lot, people rely so much on reviews for their decision making today. Uh, to, to your point, you have to do everything you can to get positive, authentic reviews because, uh, it it's an area that's under a lot of scrutiny today, and there's no shortcuts. You know, you either give a great experience and get authentically great reviews or you know, you're gonna suffer the consequences. And, and our strategy and what we advise our, our brands, our customers or clients, whatever you want to call them, we try to explain like, look, it's, it's part of, it's part of this business and, and here's the risks for not having, um, you know, a fair return policy. If you get to play hardball, it's gonna hurt the brand. Let's figure out how to remarket your stuff and, and take as little of a haircut as we have to on these returns. And so we offer a platform for them to be able to sell the returns again, as either renew, which is, you know, uh, uh, um, you know, an authorization on Amazon to sell high quality refurbished products, or we'll sell it as, you know, used, you know, or, or almost as good as new. But we'll show the quality will explain the condition and we sell it for them. Um, we try to, you know, alleviate the pain. Can you talk a little bit about kind of your two models of, of kind of selling for sure versus kind of serving. I'm glad you asked Scott. Versus like an agency. Well, and I'm also curious about, in the two models, if there's any difference in terms of like, our nuances, in terms of things like return policies when you're, when you're taking on, uh, the burden of, of going out and selling it versus when you're serving in a cons more of a consulting or agency. Role. So, you know, the agency is, is quite easy. I mean, we're, we're an agency. We're usually managing a brand store or their business on Amazon in general. We're not buying their product, we're not taking any risk in buying their product. We're managing their advertising, their content, their customer service, their logistics. We're doing all that for them, turnkey. And, you know, it's, it's, it's their store, uh, or it's their business so that, you know, we, we advise 'em to take the returns back, but, you know, you know, it's really their, it's their call. Um, when we're buying and selling it, we need to take the returns back and we'll work out, um, some kind of, uh, either a return back to the brand or some kind of allowance from them for us to be able to discount the products when they come back. So we can sell 'em as renew refurb or used. And, and so, um, whatever the case is, it's almost always better than them having to get it back. So the allowance is usually the area they go to, but the buy and sell model is the most popular with brands because their motion of selling a lot of stuff to a seller or, you know, to, to a retailer is much more normal for them than selling one and two at a time and dealing with all this, uh, reconciliation. Um, that's, that's really interesting. And I, I know that I, I, I don't wanna get into the weed too much, but I think a lot of just consumers and folks will be interested. What is, when it, when it comes to a return, what is the standard at which something has to be sold at like a refurb or, or lo or, or, or discounted price versus can just be resold as, as, as new? It, it depends on, you know, how it comes back when, if it, if electronic product, once it's opened and it's, you know, the seal is broken, you're supposed to sell it as open box or, um, you know, not new. Uh, so you have to be really careful. It's gotta be men condition un unopened, and you do get a lot of returns like that. People just get it and send it back. Um, buyer's remorse kind of stuff. And those are the best returns cause you just sell it again. Um, but once they open it, you gotta inspect it, make sure that all the parts are there, make sure that it's an a hundred percent working condition, and then you have to remarket it again. But usually is an open box where, um, like I said, refurb, the, um, you know, when it comes to clothing, it might not come back in the same exact bag, but if it's completely unused in the tags are there, and you could tell it's never been worn and you know, you know, you, you could repack it and sell it as, as new for the most part, but once it's worn or dirty, it's, it's, it's garbage. You're gonna have to throw it out. You're not gonna sell that or you gonna donate it. So clothing is a bit different. And so I, I don't wanna get too technical, but I, I just actually very curious about it. What's the process for determining, like something has been worn or something like, you know, is there. Physical? Oh, I think everybody, I don't an individual that goes through it. Yeah, I don't think there's any one standard, right? Yeah. I don't think there's any one standard. Um, like with the bathing, so you still have this like, tape in there. Mm-hmm. And once the tape is gone, it's, it's used, you know, but, um, they inspect the products and it's company by company and whoever is inspecting it, and if it's all good and not worn, I mean, I think with shoes is people that smell them. It's like, uh, you know, it sounds bizarre, but there's smells that smell this stuff. I'm not really making this up. I wish I was <laugh>, but, uh. I'm just, I'm, I'm drawing a mental picture.<Laugh>, yeah. I. D if I wanna. But if they're scuffed or something like that. But I mean, you know, you have to be really, really, really careful about it because the last thing you want to know, I, I, I mean, I've purchased things and I could tell it was it was open before and used before and I get really upset about it and, you know, I'll, I'll try and send it back immediately. So you don't wanna have a return that keeps on boomeranging back. Well, it, it's such a, well, if you tie that back and just to, to be, to, to have a little, uh, empathy for, for retailers who would feel like they have to be stricter is if someone is bracketing and they try on four different baiting suits or something and keep one and send the others back, you're saying potentially those others might not, you not, might not be able to sell them again. Potentially. Yeah. Yeah. So, but you're saying even with all those things being the case on balance, having a more generous or flexible return policy is gonna pay off in the. Long run? Yeah, because I think a lot of those clothes and, you know, as long as they're not really like worn and they've tried it on and they're put back, like you go to the store and you go to the rack and you go to the dressing room and you try it on and it goes back to the racket, it could be a hundred times in the day and it's still sold as new. So it, it's like one, one, you know, if it's yeah. Worn or it's, you know, indications that it's used, you know, and I'm not the, you know, the tester, so I don't exactly know, but everybody's got their own litmus test for it. And like I said, it's not standard with electronics. Um, hard goods, it's a little easier because it's, if it's unsealed, um, it's used or, or it's open box. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, yeah. You can say never used, you know, as good as new, but it's not new. And if it's, if it's just an open box, nothing else, you, you have to typically what, not 20% off, or does it vary. Widely? It, it depends, you know. Yeah. 2020 percent's probably, um, a good start. It could go more, but I, I'd started five or 10% and work my way down over time. Okay. Well, I somehow, I I, I dived into all these things that would scare retailers about giving generous return policies, but, uh, keep. Your eye well, what, what, what stinks is, I mean, it's just like there's a lot of abuse. So here we are talking about you gotta take the, the returns if you want to keep your brand healthy and people happy and people leaving good reviews. So it's like a bit of a, you know, it's, it's a tough go, but when people abuse it, it's really frustrating. And, and, and, and so if there's a way to identify the abusers and some of the Amazons of the world do know who the abusers are, they have good algorithms for it, you know, they have huge, huge return rates per purchase. You know, they look at their purchase history target and the others know some of the abusers, um, you know, to try and keep those guys off, that's probably worth it. It might still get you a bad review, so you gotta be really careful about that. But, um, you know, there's this story where, uh, you know, family bought three sets of cleats, you know, a football cleats, um, for their kids, and they returned 'em. And in the return were, you know, two year old cleats with mud in stuff on 'em that, you know, they were just upgrading and getting the new pairs for their kids and sending back the old ones. And like, that's kind of, to me, kind of disgusting. And yeah, you know, you're hoping people behave because the retailers need to behave and do the right thing, and they need to do the right thing also. So, you know, you shouldn't be trying to game the system because that's where the increase in all the prices are gonna come from. It's like the insurance business, you know, the price, somebody's gotta pay for it. Right. Exactly. So, so, you know, going back to the survey, yeah. Um, you know, I think one of the other insights we found is, um, that timing, and you had mentioned it earlier, you know, that was a big deal for me. Like, we all think that people need months to be able to return this stuff, and it's really not true. But, you know, we determined that more than two thirds of consumers return their gifts the first week of Christmas. I mean, that, it makes sense, but maybe it doesn't. Like I, I thought, you know, people need 30, 40, 50 days to return stuff because they're so busy, but it's not true. Well, I know when I was growing up as a kid, um, I don't do this, but when I was growing up as a kid, we, my, my family, my mom, we had a ritual every year. We went to the store, we went to the mall the day after Christmas every year to return stuff. That was, I just thought that was part of Christmases on the tw December 26th, every year you went and returned stuff. So I, I, I was kind of grew up, used to that, but was interesting. I thought it's like this juxtaposition is in the survey, uh, when asked about what policies people were important to people, 58% said a flexible window of 30 days or more on returns was important. But to your point, 69% said they plan to return gifts, um, with by the first week after Christmas. And that includes, uh, 15%, uh, who said they would return gifts the day after Christmas, like my mom and my family used to do, or, or even before Christmas. So you people get their Christmas gift, they get it through Amazon or say before Christmas, and they open it before Christmas and they return it before Christmas. So 15% of respondents said they did that, but overall, almost 70% said by, by the first week after Christmas, say, basically by New Year, they will have returned any gifts they're planning to return. So, which is probably more in line with the, these stricter policies that people want to enforce. Um. But it's great marketing. I mean, like you saying, you were saying earlier, I mean, like 60 days, 30 days, 60 days, only 7% of the people are returning their stuff after two weeks. So it's like, you know, make it broad because human nature is gonna only, you know, really give a a, a very slow or small amount after the two week period. And, and two weeks is incredibly fair, I think. Yeah. For you not to give at least two weeks is, you know, I think pretty ridiculous. And, and to tell you the truth, like, I don't know, if you go to some of these smaller boutique retailers, many of them will say no returns or store credit only. It's like, how does that work? I mean, I, I, I get so nervous to buy gifts, like buying for myself maybe, but buying a gift from somebody who's no return to store credit, only, I'm scared to death to make that a gift. Like, what do you do? And, and so yeah, I do think it's really important, you know, and, and I don't want the world to think, oh, this guy just loves giving returns. We don't <laugh>. It's just, it's, it's like part of the, part of the, the game. It's part of the, the business. And you gotta figure out how to deal with it and dispose of it, but not stop it from happening. And like I said, prevent it up upfront with great copy, great imagery, great video, and, you know, having a a, you know, lenient policy, you're still gonna get all the returns in the same time period, but take 'em back. Don't ruin your rep. Uh, it's interesting, I, I'd love to understand a little bit more about what you do and what you counsel regarding, you know, what are best practices now in terms of on that product page, say, you know, making sure every important question that, that that buyer has is answered. So to increase the chance that they're going to make some buy something, they're gonna keep you. You mentioned video. Has that something that's emerged just more recently and and what, what kinds of video work? Best. Video's always been important, uh, but it's more important now than ever. And having more than one video. So a short form video to show the product the size and it in use is a big, big deal. Uh, I think a how to even install it, if you have to install something is really, really important. Um, you gotta have that, um, how to maintain it is maybe a third video. If it's something that, um, it, it, you know, is an appliance or something that you have for a while, uh, with clothing, it's, it's showing it in every angle on people, on different size people. So not just the same model over and over and over again. Different, you know, heights, different widths. Um, people are different and, and they wanna see what it looks like and, you know, which one of those models is more like them. Yeah. Is helpful. But the size of things I, I mean, I don't know how many times I've ordered something, like I've ordered a ring or something and I get it. I go, what? I can't even read it. Like, I was supposed to have an inscription in this thing. It says, you know, to, to my beautiful baby Abigail, I love you. And it's like, where, where is it? Like, gimme a magnifying gun. showing that like, and, and many of the people use the hand or they use a coin or they put a ruler. These are really helpful things to, to show the size and, and comparison. Um, you know, I think there's nothing better and nothing more important, but you gotta have some kind of short form, visual, you know, showing all around the product and show it in use, um, show people installing it. It's as simple as 1, 2, 3, or maybe it's not as simple as 1, 2, 3, but show them so they know what they're getting into. And, and then some kind of maybe troubleshooting. Um, you know, some of these don't have to be Hollywood productions, they just need to be simple. Somebody maybe taking a PowerPoint and showing the product at the same time. So there's words and there's a visual. Uh, it helps. I, I barely read the manuals that come into anything anymore. I try to get YouTube and I try to go right away. I mean, I'm building everything here that we buy. Like nothing comes assembled. It's it, to me, it's kind of fun. As you can see, I like Legos. I have my, I dunno if you can see my rocket behind me, but yeah, you know, I love to build this stuff, but it's, you get some of these instructions, you go, wow, I can't even read this. And so the video is really, really helpful and that'll keep it out in the field. So, you know, once people start trying to assemble something and it's hard, they're gonna return it. So make it easy. Um, super important. Um, you know, one thing is, I, I said it earlier, tell people what it's not. And I know that sounds like anti-marketing, cuz you want everybody to believe your product, you know, solves everything and, you know, uh, will save you from cancer. But a lot of products do one thing and one thing only, and it's not for everything. And one product that I ran into this, we go to Europe, um, often to see family is the, you know, power, adapters, power, um, uh, converters. So, you know, here it's one 10, there's two 20, and if you plug your hair dryer into the wall from the US in, in, in England or in Europe, it'll pop, it'll blow, it'll be gone. The second you put it in there is no saving it. So there's these power converters that either bring, you know, bring it down from two 20 or in the, you know, from Europe to here, bring it down, uh, bring it up. So, um, but it doesn't work for everything. Like, so they'll, you'll see now on the advertisements or the product pages that this product works with, you know, a radio, an iPhone, a computer, it does not work with hair dryer. So there's a big X don't not use hair dryer. Do not use, you know, curling iron. You can use these, don't use these. And it must have been painful for the first guy to ever do that. But the returns were probably off the wall and people were angry because they go, what, what is this? It's a power converge. It's supposed to work, but I, I can't use my hair drive. No, you can't. And, and there's things that you can use air drive for, but it's these bigger things. It's not these smaller little portable things. And, you know, um, they learned a valuable lesson and now they for the most part put, you know, a couple of images that have big xes do not use it with this. Well that's such a, uh, very important point. And, and you know, we deal all the time with clients that when we ask 'em about their target market, for example, well they say, oh, our our product works for everybody. Yeah. Well then, then it works for nobody in terms of actually having a target that's gonna un feel like it's for them. And, and that's kind of an example of that, what you're describing it, when you are upfront about the things that you're not good at or your product is not good at, the things you do say it's good at, people are more likely to believe. Absolutely. Right? Sure. And so you're actually, it might sound like, oh wait a minute, I'm now people who have hair dryers won't buy this. Um, but the other people who you're gonna serve better anyway are gonna feel more confident. Well, they've told me was, it doesn't work for us, so I know for sure it's gonna work for, for what I've got. And let me tell you that hair dryer person, he's gonna be really angry at you when they blow their Yeah, because you ruin the appliance, it's gone the second you plug it in, it pops, it's over, it smokes and, and it's, it's done. So, um, you wind up getting, you know, bigger issues with companies coming back to you or people coming back to you saying, Hey, you owe me for my hair dryer, you know, you don't want, how do I start dealing with that now? So you don't wanna deal with that. Um, you know, it, it's a big deal. So, you know, I kind of think we drifted off what we were talking about, but I think you, you gotta make sure that you're telling people what your products do and don't do and be really open and honest. You know, growing up with marketing it with how do I sell as many of everything as I possibly can and buyer beware and now it's no way. You don't want that. Absolutely. Right. So, you know, the, the, the one of the bigger insights, you know, that we learned from our survey was that when people are shopping, are they, or are they not looking at the policies that resellers or online, um, sellers or Amazon sellers have, uh, or retailers in general, big box, you know, they have in the return policy is actually important. Like people look for that when they're buying, like I mentioned, I go in a store and they don't take returns. I'm scared to death. Like I might still buy it, but I, you know, good chance I'm not gonna buy it because I am scared. What happens if whoever I get it for, or even if I get it for myself, I I need to return it and I don't want to go through the hassle arguing with the store owner or, I mean, nobody wants to deal with this stuff. So, you know, what, what are your thoughts on our, you know, that our final insight on our survey? Well, yeah, I mean, it was a high number. Seven 76% said they typically review an online retail's return policy before sending a gift. So it's, it's something that is not only important in terms of providing information to people, but it's clearly, I think, evident that it's a deciding factor in many cases in whether someone's going to pull the trigger on a purchase or not. Um, if they don't like what they see there. Um, so you better have information there that's going to, you know, make people feel comfortable, comfort, yeah. And, and, and trust you enough to, to go ahead and pull the trigger and seal the deal. Um, and I, I didn't expect the number to be that high, expected it to be the majority, but 76%, that's a lot of. That's, and, and that's why so many people buy on Amazon and walmart.com or Walmart in the store or Target or Home Depot. I mean, when we buy from Home Depot, um, it's easy. We go and we return it or, you know, the biggest issue that, that, that retailers have and sellers have is that how do you get the products back to them? And people really don't wanna spend, you know, they didn't wanna spend money on shipping to get it to them. They definitely don't wanna spend money on shipping to get it back. So again, who pays for all this stuff? Well, you gotta kind of build it into your margin, I guess, because people don't want to pay for that product to go back. They want you to take it back. Amazon for the most part, you know, there are sellers that have different policies, but they make it so easy to print a label, you know, take it to the UPS store, um, and, and have it go back. But once you start saying you gotta pay 15 bucks or 20 bucks to send things back. But there's a real cost to that guys. I mean, like, there's a real cost shipping is not cheap. I don't care if it's US Mail u p s, FedEx, I mean, shipping has gotten so much more expensive and that's why retailers don't want you to just, you know, they don't wanna help cover that cost. Maybe they'll take it back, but they want you to pay for it. And that gets people angry if they don't know about it. Yeah, I, I'm curious about, um, uh, probably like a lot of consumers, I, I don't understand fully kind of where Amazon ends and the third party Amazon sellers begin in terms of some of the policies and things. I'll give you an example. Real life example just happened this, um, in the last month with my wife is, uh, we had, she had bought a trampoline for our kids and uh, I guess it was through a third party seller on Amazon, but it was through Amazon and Amazon Prime I think, at everything. And, and so we got it and we're gonna set it up and we realized we got one that was too big, so we needed to get one that was with size smaller. And so we started this process of we're gonna return it and we're gonna return it at a Amazon, you know, location, uh, nearby in town cuz it's really big to, to stuff it in the, the minivan and all that. And then we got a, um, an email from an, an Amazon seller, not Amazon saying, Hey, um, is there anything we can do here? Like, um, can I give you a discount? Um, yeah. You know, I'm like, gosh, we'd love, I mean it just doesn't fit between the trees, you know? Um, or we would love to accommodate it, but yeah, we were surprised to get this email be teaching us, Hey, can I, can we work something out? Well, you know, um, let's, let's put it this way. There's 2 million sellers on Amazon that are not Amazon. And of those 2 million sellers, um, some are very small mom and pops, some are much bigger resellers are brands that are selling there. And you know, 67% of the gross merchandise value that gets sold through Amazon is from these third party sellers. So the majority of the sales, you know, not the way Amazon records their revenue, right? But the gross merchandise value gets sold through, sold through these third parties. What percentage of a what percentage of just consumers or Amazon customers would, would, would you think would know that or would be surprised by. That? I, I think I'm surprised everybody surprised when they hear it because they always think, and, and that's just the beauty of Amazon is Amazon. So you're gonna get the Amazon, um, guarantee no matter what. And that's why that seller's reaching out, they so don't want that return because it's so costly for them Yeah. That they wanna figure out how to keep it in the field. So you bought it from a seller, but you bought it with Amazon's terms and conditions so you could return it. Um, there might be a restocking fee, it might not be a restocking fee, depends on the seller, but for the most part they gotta take it back. And um, you know, you might be, you might have to pay for shipping, you might not have to pay for shipping each, each one has their own rules, but for the most part, Amazon is gonna make you take it back and they want to leave it in the field. So if they can Yeah. Offer you 20% off, then having to take it back, they're gonna, they why, why wouldn't they try and do that? They don't want that. Return. Yeah. And we are buying one another one from them that's just their next smaller size. But still it's, it's a transaction. I'd rather not. And it's tough. The bigger and bulkier the product. Yeah. The more painful the return and um, you know, it, it, it's, it's part of the model. You gotta do everything you can to keep it out in the field. I don't, you know, I don't think there's any one thing that a solution, there's all these little things we talked about that try and knock it down, but, you know, could they have done something in their visuals and video to show that it was gonna be too big for you? And, um, I don't know, may maybe they could have. I, you know, it's uh, I I haven't seen it. Well, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's an education. It's a, it's a, a very interesting space and I, I can but complex and I can certainly see why if I had something to sell and I wanted to use AM Amazon, I would want an expert in, in, in this space, an expert in, in e-commerce, um, buying and selling to, to help. So, uh, that's probably a, a a, a service that, uh, a lot of people are relieved when they find you. Yeah, well, you know, like, I'm glad you brought that up too. So, you know, coming to the end of the survey, we realize that it, for brands to be successful, most likely they're gonna have to have lenient, you know, return policies. And Amazon definitely has lenient return policies. So what you need to do is, I, I hate to say embrace it, but do everything you can to minimize it with, with all the good stuff we talked about, but then have a good way to sell through your, um, returns, your refurbished your used stuff and working with companies like ours, Phelps United, I mean, we would help you sell through that stuff. And, and so you need to have a great outlet for that. We're a great out outlet for that, is we'll help you remarket that product on Amazon or other marketplaces or on their e-commerce sites. So, you know, that's one way to work with us. I mean, that's the, you know, the, the ugly part of the business, but we're, we're there, we'd love to help people upfront so they can minimize that. And so, you know, whether it's buying and selling and marketing your products on Amazon for you and doing the advertising or it's being an agency or helping you with your aftermarket, um, you know, you know, we are there for the full life cycle. So, um, you know, our ask is reach out to us and, you know, contact us and we'd love to talk to you guys about it. That's awesome. Yeah, it's a, it's a probably a time of year where particularly after the holidays, a lot of retailers that, uh, are having struggles in different kinds will, will wanna be finding some help for next. Year. Yep. Not just, um, returns, but trying to accelerate their sales and navigate Amazon. And, you know, shipping is going up and storage is going up and um, the marketplace is getting more crowded, but 610 billion of gross merchandise value a year gets sold through Amazon and it's hard for you to ignore it. And if you ignore it, somebody is gonna figure out how to sell your stuff on Amazon and potentially hurt your brand. So, you know, find a good partner to work with cuz it's hard to be great at everything. You might be great at making a product, you might be great at advertising, but you, you know, to deal with the full gamut of all the things you need to be great at on Amazon and Walmart and, um, all the other marketplaces. It, it's hard. And, um, we're here to help. So with that, that's right. Um, I think we should try and wrap this thing up and I want you to thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking to you about this and, um, I, I recommend everybody get this great book that Scott has written. I wanna write a book. I mean <laugh>, I, I, I, I can't believe you have the time in the brain power to do that, but that book is trust signals brand building and a post trusts and a post, post-truth world brand building and a post-truth world, and I'd recommend everybody pick it up. Well, thank you. It's it. I've really enjoyed the talk. Okay, Scott.