Three pairs of jeans, one kept
An order comes in for the same straight-leg jeans in a 26, 27 and 28. You know exactly what is going to happen. Two pairs will be back within a fortnight, probably with the tags tucked in, and one of them will be creased enough to need pressing. For that fortnight, three units of a bestseller are out of your stock and unavailable to anyone else.
Some customers do this once, on their first order, and then buy one size after that. Some do it every time, on every style. Your returns rate report lumps them all together, so you cannot tell the difference between a sizing problem and a habit.
The reasons behind bracketing
Shoppers bracket when they are unsure. The more ranges you carry, and the more they are cut differently, the more reasonable bracketing becomes from the customer's side. Free returns remove the only brake.
- The size guidance on the page is generic, so shoppers hedge.
- Sizing varies between your ranges, so last time's size is no guide.
- There is no prompt at checkout when two sizes of the same style are in the basket.
- Nobody can see which customers bracket habitually and which did it once.
Without the data, brands swing between two bad options: tolerate everything, or bring in a blanket returns charge that annoys the customers who never bracket at all.
What it is costing
| Cost | How it shows up |
|---|---|
| Stock tied up | Bestsellers look sold out while units sit in parcels |
| Postage and handling | Paid on items that were never going to be kept |
| Condition | Tried-on garments needing pressing, repairs or seconds |
| Forecasting | Size demand looks inflated, so the buy is skewed |
| Policy guesswork | Returns rules set without knowing who they hit |
How we tackle it
- At the basket and checkout, a small script spots two or more sizes of the same style and colour. It shows that style's fit note and size chart right there, with a short line such as 'Most customers find this style true to size'.
- Orders that contain multiple sizes of one style are tagged in Shopify when they are placed, so you can measure them separately.
- Returns are matched back to those tags, giving a real bracketing rate per style and per customer rather than a guess.
- A monthly view ranks styles by how often they are bracketed. A style that is bracketed far more than others usually has a sizing problem worth fixing at source.
- A customer view shows who brackets repeatedly, with their order and return history, so any decision about them is made by a person looking at facts.
- If you choose to act, for example by showing certain customers a different returns message or charging for returns above a level you set, the tags make that possible without changing the experience for everyone else.
What policy you adopt, if any, is a business decision for you and your advisers. We give you the data and the switches; we do not pick the rule.
Separating the habit from the fit problem
The useful discovery is often that bracketing is concentrated. A handful of styles attract most of it, usually because the fit is unusual or the page gives too little help. Fixing those pages, and feeding the fit data to the next production run, removes the main reason to bracket those styles, without touching your returns policy at all.
The rest is a small group of habitual bracketers. With a clear list, you can decide how to treat them, rather than punishing every shopper for the behaviour of a few.
Day to day afterwards
The warehouse still processes the same returns, but the report on Monday tells you what share were bracketing and which styles drove it. The merchandiser knows which product pages need better fit copy. Buyers can strip bracketed orders out of their size demand, so next season's size ratios are based on what people kept.
Signs bracketing is hurting you
- Orders often contain the same item in two or three sizes.
- Bestsellers show as sold out while returns are in transit.
- You cannot tell habitual bracketers from one-off cases.
- Your size demand figures include units that came straight back.
- You are considering a returns charge but do not know who it would affect.