Return rate
Return rate is the percentage of items sold that customers send back, calculated by dividing returns by sales over the same period. Merchants track it per order, per unit or by revenue, and usually per category, because a store-wide average hides the products doing the damage. In clothing retail it is one of the numbers that most directly decides whether a product line is profitable.
How to calculate it
Pick one denominator and stay with it: returned units over units sold, returned orders over orders, or refunded revenue over gross revenue. Match the time windows carefully — returns arrive weeks after the sales they belong to, so comparing this month’s returns against this month’s sales flatters a growing store and punishes a shrinking one. Cohort the calculation by order date instead: of everything sold in March, how much eventually came back.
Why clothing returns run high
Fit is the reason clothing returns more than most categories. A shopper cannot feel the fabric or check the fit, so they guess — and some hedge by ordering two sizes with the intention of returning one, a habit known as bracketing. Every return costs the merchant twice: the shipping and handling to process it, and the resale value lost if the item comes back unsellable or out of season.
What a Shopify merchant can do
Most fixes are informational: accurate size charts, honest photography, fabric and measurement details, and reviews that mention fit. Try-on tools sit in the same category — they give the shopper more information before the order rather than after it. Looksy publishes no figure for how much try-on reduces returns, because the honest answer depends on your products and customers. Measure it on your own store by comparing return rates for orders that used try-on against those that did not.
Sources: the public Shopify App Store listing for Looksy. Last checked 27 July 2026.
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