The Asos returns row should be a wake-up call for all of us

Another weekend, another outpouring of outrage on social media. This time, the ire was reserved for online fashion brand Asos.

“Has anyone else had a sh***y email off Asos? Maybe if you sorted your sh***y sizing, cheapo material and the fact nothing ever gets delivered next day we wouldn’t have to return!”, read one tweet.

“Wow. That’s me no longer using Asos and I hope everyone else who’s been sent this email does the same. Maybe if they made clothes that actually fit properly to the size they’re supposed to be or look like they did on the website I wouldn’t send as much back,” read another.

“Asos is disgusting,” went a third.

The backlash came in response to an email that had been sent out to a select group of customers, announcing that the retailer would be changing its returns policy.

“We wanted to give you a heads-up about some updates we’re making to our Fair Use Policy that will affect your future orders with Asos,” reads the message, now shared widely online. “We know how much our customers love free returns, and we will continue to make free returns available to all UK customers.

“However, as part of a small group of customers with a frequently high returns rate, you’ll now only get free returns when you keep £40 or more from your order. If you keep less than £40 from your order, we’ll deduct £3.95 from your refund. The vast majority of customers will still receive free returns on all orders.”

Some of the brand’s Premier customers – those who pay a yearly subscription fee to get free delivery options – received a similar email outlining that they would have to keep a minimum of £15 worth of items to qualify for free returns.

You’d have thought, from the vitriol that spewed forth, that a monumental miscarriage of justice had taken place. You’d have thought, from the way people were talking, that they had no choice in the matter – that Asos was the state-mandated brand from which all clothes must be purchased in the UK. Affected shoppers railed against the poor sizing, the shoddily made garments that didn’t resemble what had been advertised on the website, and the cheap materials used. It was these factors, they said, that necessitated all those returns.

Reading through this catalogue of righteous anger, one could easily get swept up in it all and join the baying mob raging against “The Man” for penalising the beleaguered, underdog consumer. But think about it for more than a few seconds, and the argument collapses like an underdone souffle.

First off, Asos is a business making a business decision. If the company has opted to forge ahead with a move so unpopular in some quarters that it will inevitably drive away custom, one can only assume that Asos calculated they would be better off financially without those customers, such is their rate of returns. Secondly, no one is forcing these people to purchase things from Asos. According to their own accounts, those angriest about the upcoming policy change don’t appear to even like shopping from there. If the sizing is off or the condition questionable as claimed, has it ever occurred to them that they can simply… take their money elsewhere? Perhaps to a place that prioritises quality of output over vast, unending quantity? That is, so it goes, the beauty of capitalism. We have never had more choice. If we don’t like a company’s products or policies, we can vote with our wallets. We don’t have to buy from them. 

But the angry reaction is perhaps indicative of a bigger problem within the landscape of overconsumption in the year 2024. Over the past two decades, our behaviour as consumers has changed beyond all recognition thanks to technology. Instead of the old way – walking into a physical shop; touching garments to get a sense of the fabric; trying them on to see how they fit; returning with a friend to see what they think; weighing up whether or not you can afford something before taking the plunge; heading home with a cherished item that will be your favourite “new thing”, worn with pride for months to come – some monstrous facsimile has grown up in its place.

Now, we engage in a phantom version of shopping online that’s completely detached from the physical realm. The items don’t seem real in that digital space – and neither does the money paid for them. “Clothes” are added to “baskets” and ordered in a matter of seconds, purchased on a whim to provide a brief dopamine hit and just as quickly forgotten about until they arrive. Services like Klarna, where you can buy on credit and pay back in instalments, make it even easier to make an impulse buy when you can ill afford to.

Products aren’t purchased intentionally or thoughtfully but off the cuff; there’s a disposable feeling about the entire process from start to finish, encapsulated by the very concept of fast fashion. Cheap, flimsy items ordered in bulk and returned on mass when they inevitably disappoint can be destined for landfill or destruction by the time they’re sent back, as retailers move on to the next trend, and the next, and the next. Unlike the previous designated seasons, which dictated when stores would introduce fresh collections, there is now a constant, never-ending merry-go-round of new styles online to ensure we never stop buying.

Global clothing sales have more than doubled in the past 20 years, according to a 2024 PwC report. The UK is the worst offender in Europe, with the average UK citizen buying an average of 26.7kg of clothing per year, nearly twice that of our nearest competitor, Germany. Meanwhile, the quickfire production of fast fashion means as much as 40 per cent of manufactured clothing is never even sold or worn; of the 100 billion garments produced globally each year, 92 million tonnes end up in landfill.

Asos is already struggling within this cut-throat market, posting an 18 per cent drop in sales in March this year. It’s up against not only high-street retailers with ever-improving ecommerce offerings, but the proliferation of online-only, dirt-cheap competitors like Boohoo, Shein and Temu, whose rock-bottom prices are impossible to match. The brand is doing its best though, pivoting from trying to position itself as the “sustainable” fast-fashion choice – partnering with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion to publish the Circular Design Guidebook in 2021 and releasing a ‘“circular design collection” in 2022 – to casting 2024 as a “transition year”. The new focus is on speeding up processes, launching new collections and getting rid of a build-up of excess stock, none of which sounds even slightly conducive to sustainability.

Then there’s the other, slightly more hopeful side of the competition – the swift rise of the pre-loved clothing market, with sites like Vinted and Depop presented as a more sustainable way for people to get their fashion fix. Although far from perfect, these platforms do encourage a more considered, patient approach, as well as allowing garments to be reused rather than binned: there is no next-day delivery; no option to return something unless it’s damaged or isn’t as pictured in the app. There’s a level of commitment required before you click “buy now” – but if something’s not quite right it can always be resold and put back into circulation again by the same means.

It may be a controversial opinion, but I’m not sure that endless returns, incentivising as they do a thoughtless, bulk-buying shopping culture, should be free. Perhaps then we’d think a little more before ordering another tranche of clothes we barely want, let alone need; perhaps then we’d give real consideration before supporting an industry that’s filling an already overfilled world with ever-more stuff.