Recently we received several fashion clothing dropshipper complain about the fashion clothing supplier bad quality with high refund rates and seek for dropshipping solutions on how to reduce refund rates for the fashion clothing dropshipping business. According to the chinese online platforms statistics, the fashion clothing especially women clothing refund rates could upto 80% which far beyond other goods categories, What’s the main reason caused high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping? Have you also suffered from the high refund rates of the fashion clothing dropshipping business? We can discuss the reason and solutions how to help you reduce refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping.

6 reasons caused high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping

The reasons for the high return rate of women’s clothing can be attributed to many aspects. First of all, the characteristics of online shopping make it impossible for consumers to actually try on and out when purchasing. They can only rely on pictures and descriptions of products to make decisions. However, female consumers pay far more attention to details and personalization than male consumers, and they are more picky and pursue perfection. Therefore, even if the product pictures and descriptions are basically consistent with the actual goods, female consumers may still choose to return the goods due to some minor differences after receiving the goods. There are totally 6 reasons caused high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping.

1.Clothing doesnt match the photos on store

A major problem with online shopping is the discrepancy between the actual product and how it is presented. The product pictures on many e-commerce platforms are carefully photographed and edited, but the quality, color or style of the goods actually received is often different from those in the pictures. This discrepancy leads to consumers being disappointed after receiving the product and choosing to return it.

 

In short, it is what I bought isnt what I thought, people will surely return them in this case.

2.Quality issue

It isnt hard to imagine when you received a bad quality clothing then you want to refund. However, when you dropshipping low quality clothing it usually caused by the following factors:

1> The cheaper price the better profit margin

That’s very bad rules for fashion clothing dropshipping, if you are dropshipping on Shopify no matter how low price you sell you can hardly compete with Shein and Temu, if you pay attention to clothing price on those platforms you will find tons of fashion clothing under $10. Lower price means poor material and workmanship which is the root for high refund rates; Thus when you dropshipping clothing you should give up the low price strategy to compete with platform.

Unlike other goods categories, fashion clothing is you get what you pay for. If you want get high profit margin then you can focus on middle high-end clothing which have higher profit margin, or you can start upsell or cross-sell on store, in this way you can get higher profit margin, if you want to sell low quality clothing at middle high-end price to get high margins which will surely caused high refund rates.

2>Wrong clothing dropshipping supplier

When you have orders and dropship from fashion clothing supplier at normal price which caused high refund rates, which means you havent dropshipped from reliable fashion clothing dropshipping supplier and you may need to sourcing quality supplier or source factory;

Especially fashion clothing usually has multiple suppliers, it is even harder to unify the quality control with stable quality, which not only caused high refund rates but also waste lots of time and money to source reliable fashion clothing dropshipping factories.

3>No quality control

As dropshipper you can hardly saw the fashion clothing intuitively not to mention quality control before shipping to end users. Some fashion clothing supplier might have the quality control measures but standard is very low which caused high refund rates.

3.Size difference

When you dropshipping fashion clothing from Asia especially China, the size issue is one of the biggest reason caused high refund rates, why? Asian people size are at least 1 to 2 sizes smaller than EU US size. The size chart data on your store arent match the size chart on supplier store.

4. Inventory issue

When you dropshipping from a fashion clothing supplier and your clients found the tracking have update for weeks which cause client dispute and refund, why? The fashion clothing supplier doesnt have stock inventory. Although dropshipping doesnt need too much money to start the stock inventory are usually hard to control versus Amazon FBA or Temu and Shein. Especially when you have a best seller clothing and you found the supplier doesnt have stock or need to wait for weeks. That’s the most upset thing which not only caused high refund rates but also waste huge ads fee.

Lots of clients ask ShipAnt similar stock inventory questions, can you help me check supplier stock inventory? Are the stock inentory on supplier website is true? Can you find me fashion clothing supplier have stock inventory? We do have measures to help you reduce the refunds rates caused by inventory issue, however, it is dynamic and supplier will not lock it only for your dropshipping business.

5. Unprofessional customer service and aftersale policy

For some startup fashion clothing dropshippers they usually have no customer service or VA to support customer inquiries when placing order, and the aftersale policy on the store is very fuzzy which caused clients who placed order highly suspect unprofessional and refund even paid for a while. Thus it is very important to make a FAQ to train the customer staff or VA or robot and list on your store, it will help you significantly reduce refund rates.

6. Cheating order

The cheaing orders usually refund after they received the fashion clothing with various reason, it not only affected the refund rates but also caused money lost in the end. How to avoid cheating orders on your store? Firstly you can install anti-cheating apps in Shopify app store, it will help you doing the fraud analysis based on big data and warning you to confirm, if it dected high risk orders then you just refund and close the order; Secondly, you need to learn the paypal and credit card dispute rules to avoid cheating orders.

After we listed the 6 main reasons caused high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping, are there any measures or service to reduce high refund rates? Yes of course, As a professional fashion clothing dropshipping agent, ShipAnt all in one fashion clothing dropshipping service could help you significantly reduce the refund rates.

How to reduce refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping

Before introducing ShipAnt men women clothing dropshipping service, we would like to share a real fashion clothing dropshipping inquiry recently and our suggestions and solutions to help him reduce high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping business.

In the conversation, the clients have 20% clothing return rates due to the defects, quality and size issues, while he need at least 70% max 78% profit margin which means 100 usd sales cost only $22 to $30 which not only include product cost, service cost but also international shipping cost. To certify why he need such high margin he also listed the net profit and each cost percentage.

 

In the above photos statistics, the fashion clothing average refund rates in EU countries is around 20%, net profit 12%, 4% fees, 2% business cost include shopify platforms and apps, product cost 22%, ads cost 40%. In this way, there’s no wonder why the profit margin need upto 78%, but it isnt sustainable for dropshipping business, thus how to optimize the ads and refund rates is very important, let’s take a look how ShipAnt dropshipping service help you reduce refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping.

How to source quality fashion clothing supplier on 1688 Taobao Pinduoduo

When you plan to dropship fashion clothing from China, the no.1 rule is to source quality fashion clothing supplier online, it is the best way to reduce refund rates.

Let’s the the pants for example, there are 100+ suppliers available on 1688 and Taobao,  how do we filter the best supplier? We can filter them based on price, sales, 2nd purchase rates, store credits, reviews etc. The total cost for the pants is around $15, and you you can sell $39.99 to $44.99, profit margin should be around 60% to 75%. Thus ShipAnt team usually help you select the supplier who sell 45 yuan with totally sales 30000+ yuan and re-purchasing rates 40% instead of the cheapest price 25 yuan, or we can help you order both samples to check the material and workmanship then select the better one to reduce refund rates.

When we sourcing on 1688 Alibaba we always put the fashion clothing supplier who focus on crossborder ecommerce or foreign trading factories on the no.1 position as they know their clients well and the fashion clothing quality size issue will be far less than mainland supplier.

When the sourcing team place order on 1688 Taobao and pinduoduo, they will make purchasing list and confirm stock inventory with supplier regularly to speed up order fulfillment, if clothing have no stock they will notice in the google sheet with estimate restock time or suggest you new supplier to reduce the refund rates caused by stock inventory.

Quality inspection

ShipAnt quality check service usually include 2 parts, quality check and refund exchange. Our QC team will check the defects of the clothing from inside to outside, cut apparently thread ends off the clothing, remove stains and needle holes, the clothing stains, holes and scrathes cannot being removed will be marked for purchasing colleague to take photos, then send to seller for exchange or refund; If the fashion clothing material is awful and hardly match the selling price on your store, the QC team will also pick them out and send to sourcing team to take photos, confirm with you and refund, then sourcing a new supplier.

Size measure

The size difference is another reason caused high refund rates as mostly dropshipping agent or supplier cannot help you measure clothing one by one to match the size on your store, thus ShipAnt sourcing team usually do 3 jobs to help you maximumly reduce refund rates caused by size issue.

1.Confirm clothing size with supplier, if the fashion clothing supplier mainly target eu and us market, their clothing size are the same with EU US size, then we can order from them directly;

2.If we cannot find out the right clothing size, we usually buy 2 size larger than Chinese size, for example, if clients order size M, we will order XL in Chinese size;

3.When the clothing arrived ShipAnt warehouse, the sourcing team could help you mark which clothing need to measure size, the qc team will pick out the clothing to measure the clothing length, sleeve length, chest, waist and hip size then compare with the size chart on your store, then give you suggestions based on the size difference.

Barcode

Since the clothing has different styles, colors and sizes, sometimes it is hard to distinguish them when pick pack, thus ShipAnt warehouse will match each of them and print barcode when received, after the QC team checked the quality, the clothing will be repacked to new packaging bags and stick barcode for wareshousing. It could help you greatly reduce refund rates caused by wrong clothing shipping;

Custom label packaging

If you dropship fashion clothing from different suppliers in Aliexpress you will see massive complains and refunds. Why? Different clothing sellers means different materials, standards, labels and packagings, if a clients purchased 8 clothings on your store, they might from 3 to 5 different suppliers, each of them ship via different way and packaging which affects the user experience greatly, in return the refund rates will be high.

With ShipAnt custom label packaging service, we can help you unify fashion clothing from different suppliers after quality check, remove the supplier flyers, labels, packagings and custom them with yours, totally based on your requirements and standard.

Aftersale

When you select ShipAnt as your dropshipping agent, we will setup groups with your VA customer service and create standard google sheet to co-work on the aftersale orders, it will not only help you reduce refund rates caused by aftersale, but also help you speed up the processing time. Meanwhile, you can easily renew your faq list and aftersale policy on your store, then notice clients via different ways when you place order on your store to reduce refund rates.

The above are the 6 measures to help you reduce high refund rates for fashion clothing dropshipping, of course, it might be not enough, you are welcome to comment with your ideas, we are looking forward to partner with your fashion clothing store to help you reduce high refund rates, build your store brand with user loyalty and reputation.