Retail returns were responsible for more than $260.5B in lost sales for US retailers alone last year. Think of it this way—if the amount of money lost to returns was a company, it would hold the No. 3 slot on the Fortune 500 list.
Retailers would love to change that, and fit technology could make that happen. Fit tech uses data to aggregate consumer sizing information to help make sure the item a customer purchases will actually fit, and companies like True Fit are already pioneering systems to match thousands of product dimensions to customer information, RetailDive reports.
Clothes that don't fit account for a huge amount of apparel returns, and the fear of clothing ordered online not fitting is seriously holding back online shopping. Online apparel sales account for 7% to 12% of the market, whereas online sales consume 50% to 70% of the market for music and books. Since the global apparel market is estimated to be worth more than $1 trillion, there’s a lot of money e-commerce apparel companies are missing out on. [RD]
