Nordstrom Is Revising Their Famously Liberal Return Policy
Nordstrom has always been a novelty when it comes to retail returns. They were the example you turned to at the return counter of other retailers: “Nordstrom would have taken back this 3-year-old shirt without a receipt, maybe I’ll start shopping there instead!” (We’ve all been there.)
Once upon a time, the luxury department store chain let shoppers return any item for cash; no matter how old, no matter how used and without proof of purchase. But times have changed. A National Retail Federation report found that return fraud cost stores over $2 billion in 2015 (yikes!), and Nordstrom is revising their lenient policy in hopes of putting an end to costly serial returners.
“Occasionally there have been situations where we have felt a customer wasn’t being fair with us,” Nordstrom spokesperson Emily Sterken told Yahoo Style, “like when their returns to Nordstrom were greater than their purchases with us or when we have no record of ever having sold the item being returned”. These repeat offenders are now being logged in an internal database and risk being banned from shopping in-store and online.
And that’s not the only change. For many, Nordstrom had become a “Rent-the-Runway” type service, with shoppers purchasing special occasion dresses, wearing them for an event, and returning them shortly after. In response, the revised policy requires special occasion dresses to have the original tags attached if they are to be returned.
“We handle returns on a case-by-case basis with the ultimate objective of making our customers happy,” the policy on their website reads. “We’ll always do our best to take care of customers—our philosophy is to deal with them fairly and reasonably. We do apply returns to the tender it was purchased with. If we choose to provide a refund and no record of sale is available, a return is provided at current price on a Nordstrom Gift Card.”
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