A university study concludes targeting serial returners is the smarter path to reducing return costs because targeting regular shoppers with stricter return policies will likely backfire.
In one experiment, the researchers led by Iowa State University asked over 460 participants to imagine they were loyal customers of a retailer and planned to return a recent online purchase. Half were told the retailer was shortening its return window for all customers (generalized policy) while the rest were told the change would only affect serial returners (targeted policy).
