Size & Fit challenges for FW24/25 peak season

As the FW24/25 peak season approaches, fashion brands are gearing up for the busiest time of the year—Black Friday, Christmas, and January sales. However, alongside the potential for increased revenue comes a significant challenge: managing size & fit issues.

This period often sees a sharp increase in returns, much of which can be attributed to size and fit-related problems. In fact, DealNews found that 65% of online shoppers said that wrong size&fit is the main return reason, creating operational bottlenecks and impacting profit margins. By addressing these size & fit challenges, fashion brands can reduce returns, increase customer satisfaction, and protect their bottom line.

1. The high cost of returns due to size & fit issues

The financial and operational burden of returns during peak season is immense, with size and fit being the leading causes. Return rates in e-commerce fashion can soar as high as 30% during peak sales seasons, with incorrect sizing being a major contributor.

Returns not only incur additional costs for shipping and handling but also strain customer service and warehouse management. Furthermore, products returned after the holiday season often cannot be resold at full price, resulting in markdowns that cut into profits. Retailers face an estimated $550 billion in return costs annually, much of which stems from poor sizing.

Of course, fashion brands can mitigate this issue by implementing tools such as SizeForm, our Size&Fit Advisor, which provides customers with SKU-based size recommendations based on their body morphology, reducing the likelihood of size-related returns.

2. Inaccurate size guides lead to confusion

Another common issue is the lack of accurate and consistent size guides. For example, brands like Zara and Mango often struggle with customer confusion over international sizing, leading to increased returns.

When size guides are confusing or inconsistent, customers tend to buy multiple sizes of the same item to try at home and return the ones that don’t fit. This practice, known as bracketing, has been reported by retailers to significantly increase return rates during peak shopping seasons. A Narvar study in November last year found 58% of consumers intentionally buy more goods online than they intend to keep.

The pandemic just accelerated this trend, as consumers’ homes have now transformed into their own fitting rooms.

3. The fit expectations vs. reality gap

Following the above mentioned bracketing plague, online shoppers often face a gap between what they expect and what they receive, since they don’t have ability to try on clothing before buying. No mystery that customers often complain about discrepancies between the website images and the actual fit of the clothing. This is a widespread issue in fashion e-commerce. According to McKinsey, 70% of online shoppers report dissatisfaction with fit when buying clothing.

This discrepancy leads to high return rates and negative reviews, which can tarnish a brand’s reputation. In 2022, PrettyLittleThing experienced a surge in returns during the holiday season due to customer dissatisfaction with how items fit compared to their website descriptions. This misalignment between customer expectations and reality contributes to higher return rates, and also damages long-term brand loyalty.

To this extent, Naiz Fit’s Smart Catalogue can help brands verify how consumers perceive their size&fit compared to market benchmarks. This helps Product team get a full picture how their brand’s perceived fit, whether it is tighter or looser than other brands in the market.

4. Inconsistent sizing across collections

Brands often face challenges with inconsistent sizing across different collections. For example, an oversized sweater from one collection might fit entirely differently from a slim-fit shirt in another collection, making it difficult for customers to select the right size. According to The Fashion Studies Journal, 62% of women struggle to find consistent sizing across brands and collections.

However, the situation gets worse when sizing inconsistency occur within a single brand’s collection. A recent brand case with Naiz Fit’s Smart Catalogue revealed a Size Consistency Index of 67% in the Jeans category, which represents the percentage of sizes reported by Naiz Fit’s testers that match with their own usual size within the brand’s Jeans category.

In other words, a 67% Size Consistency Index means that if a person wore different 10 jeans models of a brand’s FW24 collection, there’d be a high chance to wear the same size only in 6-7 of them, the other models would fit either too large or too small accordingly (which means they’d need a bigger/smaller size).

5. Inventory and size replenishment pressures

Popular sizes tend to sell out quickly, especially during Black Friday and Christmas. For instance, Nike and Adidas have often faced issues with size stockouts during peak sales. A study by Edited found that out-of-stock rates increase by 45% during peak holiday seasons, meaning customers often can’t find their preferred size when shopping.

Failing to restock popular sizes leads to missed sales opportunities, while overstocking less popular sizes results in markdowns and reduced margins.

6. The sustainability challenge: CO₂ emissions from returns

As consumer awareness around sustainability grows, brands are under increasing pressure to manage the environmental impact of returns. High return rates, particularly from size and fit issues, significantly contribute to CO₂ emissions due to additional transportation. For example, Optoro estimates that returned goods in the U.S. alone create 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

For brands that emphasize sustainability managing returns is crucial to maintaining their brand identity. A rise in returns not only adds to operational costs but also conflicts with sustainability goals, which can harm the brand’s reputation. In 2022, Everlane struggled with balancing returns and sustainability commitments during the holiday season, leading to public criticism.

Fashion brands can reduce returns for wrong sizing and monitor KPIs performance thanks to Naiz Fit integration with several returns management platforms, such as iF Returns. Let’s get in touch if you want to integrate Naiz Fit with your own return management system.

7. Increased customer service pressure

During peak seasons, customer service teams are often overwhelmed by size-related inquiries. When customer service teams are overwhelmed, response times slow down, leading to frustrated customers and abandoned purchases. This can have a long-lasting impact on customer loyalty, as customers are less likely to return to a brand that provides poor service during busy shopping periods.

One might consider hiring more people for customer queries, but that only increases costs… Then why not installing a Size&Fit Advisor? Tools like our SizeForm allow customers to find the right size without needing to contact support, which improves the customer experience and frees up service teams to handle more complex queries.