Remember Amazon’s ‘no questions asked’ return policy? Well returning several products may just get you banned from the online shopping site – no questions asked.
Amazon is banning customers who return too many products, be it mobiles, clothes, etc. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the US-based ecommerce giant is questioning customers over returned items and has even banned accounts which have returned 10% of the total items they have ordered so far from the website.
This is reportedly a practice used by traditional retailers such as Best Buy, which impose limits on returns. However, it would make sense for an offline retailer to have this policy since a user gets to walk around, look, feel and try the product before buying it. But shopping online is always a gamble. You don’t always know how the product turns out. And return policies of most ecommerce majors being easy is the reason behind many shoppers trying out online shopping.
Until now, Amazon had a policy where customers could return an item within 30 days without having to give an explanation.
Several customers who have been quizzed or banned took to Twitter to express their displeasure. One customer tweeted saying she purchased around 50 items so far from Amazon of which she returned 7. She reportedly received a letter from Amazon asking her to explain why she returned so many items.
Another customer, who so far bought 550 items from Amazon and returned 43 was banned from the site without a warning.
Amazon just permanently shut down my family's account for "too many returns". No warning. #AmazonClarity pic.twitter.com/nEjjyKWEDT
— Nathan Peterson (@nathanpeterson) October 30, 2015
WSJ spoke to a customer whose account was closed after he returned one item this year and four last year. He reportedly received a mail from Amazon saying he cannot open a new account or use another account to place orders on its site. However, it wasn’t explained to him as to why his account was banned.
While Amazon refused to disclose how many returns could be termed a excessive, it told WSJ, “We want everyone to be able to use Amazon, but there are rare occasions where someone abuses our service over an extended period of time. We never take these decisions lightly, but with over 300 million customers around the world, we take action when appropriate to protect the experience for all our customers.”
At a time when Amazon is facing stiff competition from other players, especially in markets like India, this is an extremely bold move by the ecommerce player, which could lead to a significant drop in its customer base.