Buying Fast Fashion Online Without the Returns

Measurements over sizes, fabric composition, and judging a listing

Online fashion at low prices has a high return rate, and most of it is avoidable. The information needed to avoid it is in the listing, just not in the part people read.

Buy by measurement

Sizing varies enormously between brands and markets, and a size twelve from one label is a fourteen from another. Measure yourself once — bust, waist, hips, inside leg — and write it down.

Better still, measure a garment you own that fits well, laid flat, and compare against the listed measurements.

Read the composition field

It is the most honest part of any listing. Silky means polyester. A high elastane content means comfortable now and bagging at the knee within a year.

Check the care instructions, since hand-wash-only items at this price are frequently the reason they were cheap.

Look at customer photographs

They show the garment that actually arrived rather than a styled studio shot. Reviews from people who state their height and usual size are worth more than any star rating.

Check returns before ordering

Window length, who pays postage, whether sale items are excluded, and whether returns go to a domestic address. A cheap item costing a substantial sum to return overseas is not cheap.

Beware the urgency

Countdown timers and low-stock warnings exist to prevent you thinking. Ask whether you would buy it at that price without the timer, and whether it works with three things you already own.

The honest arithmetic

A garment worn fifty times costs very little per wear. One worn twice does not, however cheap it was.

Buying deliberately

Ordering a basket to try on at home is expensive for everyone and is how return rates reach the levels they do. Two sizes of one item you are genuinely unsure about is reasonable and expected.

Keep tags attached and packaging intact until you have decided.

Payment protection

Use a card or a payment service with a chargeback route, keep the order confirmations, and check which country the item ships from before ordering anything you need by a particular date.

Fabric care

Wash cool, inside out and air dry. Heat in a tumble dryer is what destroys elastane, cracks prints and shrinks cotton, and it does more damage than wearing ever does.

A fabric shaver removes pilling completely in a couple of minutes, since pilling is friction rather than the fabric wearing out.

Afterwards

Sell, swap, donate or recycle rather than binning. Textile recycling banks accept items too worn to wear.

Wash cool, inside out and air dry, which is what makes cheaper fabric last.