Fit Is the Next Big Competitive Advantage in Fashion

How to give your customers precise size recommendations when they shop online and decrease returns.

According to AfterShip for apparel brands, returns represent a $218 billion per year problem.

The cost of processing each return can range from 20% to 65% of the item’s original value, depending on factors such as shipping, restocking, and potential loss of resale value.

Here’s what the numbers reveal:

• 52% of fashion e-commerce orders are returned, primarily due to poor fit.
• 25% of those returned items never make it back to stock – they go straight to landfills or liquidation.
• Every return generates approximately 0.5 kg of CO₂ emissions through transport, warehousing, and repackaging.
• Customers are 80% less likely to return after a positive fit experience. And 1 in 5 will never shop again after a poor one.

That’s why I created The Fit Pack.

It’s a short, practical guide with 8 proven strategies to reduce returns and help customers find their perfect size faster – based on the exact methods I used to reduce returns by 66% when I ran my own fashion brand.

These are the exact strategies I’ve learned over the years – as a fashion brand founder, product developer, and now co-founder of SizeSense.ai, our size-recommendation app built for Shopify.

In an industry under increasing pressure to reduce waste, deliver better experiences, and increase repeat purchases, can brands really afford to keep gambling on fit?