If you are involved in retail, you may have noticed the term bracketing is getting mentioned a lot more, particularly during industry podcasts and webinars.  

Unfortunately, for the DIY-enthusiasts amongst you, it has nothing to do with putting up shelves.

So, what is bracketing and how you can deal with it in your e-commerce store?

In this article, we’ll go over the ins and outs of bracketing in online shopping, and provide you with actionable advice on how you can deal with it and reduce its impact on your store.

We’ll also provide you with our internal data and investigation into the topic following our survey of 2,000 shoppers in the UK.

What Is Bracketing In E-Commerce?

Bracketing in e-commerce is the practice of shoppers where they purchase multiple versions of the same product, such as different sizes or colours, to try them out at home and return the ones they did not like.

The term is likely coined in relation to the practice of bracketing in photography, where a photographer would take multiple pictures of the same scene in different exposures or camera settings.

In both instances, bracketing is about ensuring you get the right result in your first attempt, albeit with the aid of options.

Our shopper research revealed that 43% of consumers in the UK were bracketing in 2024, which mirrors the high rates seen in 2022 of 41% and 2023’s 46%.

This trend is prevalent amongst younger age groups. In 2023, 56% of Generation Z shoppers admitted to over-ordering on sizes and colours, astonishingly this jumped to 69% in 2024.

Why do some consumers bracket their purchases?

The short answer is because they don’t have access to changing rooms.

If you are unfamiliar with the retailer, the style of garment, or just don’t really know what size you are, its easier to bracket your purchases and send back the items you don’t need. This is particularly easier to do if the retailer has free returns or if you are wearing an item to a fast-approaching event, and need the fit to be right immediately.

“The bedroom is the new fitting room” Al Gerrie, Founder & CEO, ZigZag

Another form of abuse can sometimes masquerade itself as bracketing.  Shoppers will, on occasion, take advantage of sub-optimal returns policies, or ones that are too generous by over-ordering products to reach a minimum spend. They might buy additional sizes or colours of the same products, as its less obvious that purchasing multiple versions of the exact same item, to activate a marketing promotion like free shipping that hinges on a minimum spend, simply to return the items later.

They aren’t bracketing to ensure fit, but to gain financially. So, retailers should be aware that some bracketing might not be a sizing issue, but a marketing or returns policy fault.

For example, we found that 26% of Gen Z shoppers are over-ordering just so they can reach a minimum spend by purchasing and returning some of the items in their order.

Is Bracketing Fraud?

Bracketing is not fraud.

In fact, it’s expected from shoppers since they can never be too certain if a certain size would fit them well.

In our Returns Fraud Scale, we have placed bracketing in the ‘’grey area’’, which is expected but can be classed as a form of abuse if a customer sustains the behaviour beyond the norm.

Staging and wardrobing on the other hand, where consumers are abusing returns policies, are to be considered abuse and fraud.

Why Is Bracketing A Problem If It’s Expected?

Bracketing is a problem for online stores because it increases return rates and complicates their logistics, resulting in losing money from returns.

It is estimated that retailers spend between £10 and £20 per returned item. That includes anything from shipping and grading to the discounts offered to resell it.  

And despite the fact that some merchants think of bracketing as a necessary evil to satisfy their consumers, there are retailers we work with who have expressed concerns about their increased costs of returns.

There are also long-term consequences. If consumers are getting away with bracketing, they will most likely do it more frequently.

Lastly, the products that your consumers might be returning could not be Grade A quality.

In our merchant research, we found that many retailers will only receive around 65% of their returns in brand new or Grade A (near perfect) condition. This means that around a third of customers that bracket could be resulting in goods that can’t be resold as brand new.

Why Do Consumers Engage In Bracketing In The First Place?

There can be a variety of reasons why shoppers can engage in bracketing, including:

• Uncertainty about how the product will look on them: As online stores cannot offer physical trials, shoppers have to look at pictures to see how your products will fit them.
• Perceived risk reduction: Due to your generous return policy, shoppers might feel like returning unwanted items would not cost them anything.
• Easier decision-making: Instead of figuring out which product to order from your catalogue, consumers can order a few products and then return the ones that they did not like in person.

How To Deal With Bracketing In Your Online Store?

You can deal with bracketing in your e-commerce store by:

• Incentivising smarter shopping
• Optimising your returns process
• Charging for returns
• Using AI for predicting bracketing behaviour
• Live Exchanges

The obvious strategy in dealing with bracketing is being clearer about sizes and providing accurate descriptions of products.

Despite that, the retailers we work with have told us that detailed descriptions are not enough.

Let’s go over our proposed solutions in a bit more detail:

Encourage Smarter Shopping

The first strategy you can incorporate into your online store is to encourage or incentivise your consumers to shop smarter on your online store.

This is difficult to get right. As you don’t want to incentivise shoppers buying less, but you do want them buying less of the items they are definitely going to return.

You can do that by proactively discouraging bracketing or by offering them incentives to engage in bracketing less frequently, such as:

• Promoting loyalty programs that reward low return rates
• Pop-ups that appear when shoppers have selected multiple items that encourage consumers to try one size first

Follow up emails shortly after purchase to confirm whether they need multiple sizes. Sometimes a little guilt tripping can work on consumers that don’t think of the environmental or financial impact of unnecessary returns.

Optimise Your Returns Process

You can optimise the returns process of your online store and minimise your costs of returns by following our 4-step process:

1. Use data to identify shoppers who have bought the same product in different sizes.
2. Send them an email reminding them to return the products they did not see fit. By getting goods back faster, you increase the chance of resell. This is probably more relevant during peak season.
3. Offer them different return options that fit with their lifestyle, such as post office, home collection, lockers, or your store (to boost foot traffic).
4. Re-sell the returned items quickly so you can reduce inventory disruptions.

As ~50% of returns take more than 10 days to process, you can take this strategy to get your return sooner and minimise the cost of returns.

To make that process as smooth and automated as possible, you can use a returns management platform like ZigZag Global (that’s us).

Our global returns platform provides a personalised returns solution for your shoppers, providing them with various return options that help you save money from returns, such as free in-store returns.

The platform integrates with 1,500+ carrier services giving you discounts on return labels, and gives your customers access to 500,000+ drop-off locations.

You’ll also get access to ZigZag’s advanced returns reporting that will help you detect suspicious returns behaviour.

Charge For Returns (Paid Returns)

Another strategy to battle bracketing is to start charging your shoppers for returns.

Paid returns are when you ask shoppers to pay a fee to return their product(s).

This helps ensure consumers make careful decisions and don’t buy more than necessary.

This is the approach we recommend to the merchants we work with when they ask us how they can deal with serial returners who abuse their free returns policy.

Our research found that 50% of serial returners are happy paying for returns and that there’s a 32% rise in paid returns since last year.

We’ve seen the results: Brands we work with were able to reduce the cost of their returns by up to 57% after implementing paid returns.

We at ZigZag have not experienced any retailers saying that sales have dropped since the introduction of paid returns.

Here are some of the reasons why we have been recommending our retailers to offer paid returns:

Returned costs are covered so your company is not on the losing end from bracketing.

Consumers can’t exploit the free returns policy to engage in bracketing.

Shoppers are likely to make better buying decisions and not purchase multiple options every time.

Interested in how much you can save with paid returns? You can check out our Paid Returns calculator.

Using AI for predicting bracketing behaviour.

We discussed the use of technology to accurately detect, predict, and mitigate returns related fraud in another blog.

The better you understand your customers, the better chance you have of targeting the real returns policy abusers and keeping your loyal customers happy and unaffected by changes.

Live Exchanges

Live Exchanges enable a customer to swap their returning product with another item within the retailer’s in-stock catalogue. It offers a quick and easy way for customers to swap their item for another without having to go through an extended refund and reordering process.

By offering Live Exchanges, customers can get accustomed to fast sizing or colour changes without the need to bracket.

The vast majority of customers don’t want to bracket. But it’s the best way to get an appropriately fitted product without constant back and forth purchasing and returning.

But an easy-to-use Live Exchanges feature, such as the one offered by ZigZag, will change behaviour over time, leading to reduced returns, saved sales, and happy customers.

Next Steps: Reduce The Impact of Bracketing In Your Store With ZigZag Global

No matter what we do, bracketing is an inevitable force of nature in e-commerce.

There will be shoppers who intentionally buy various sizes and colours to try them at home and imitate the traditional fitting room.

Even though we cannot fully stop bracketing, online retailers can at least recover some of their return costs and better manage their inventories.

Our returns solution offers a few approaches to minimise the impact of bracketing:

• Offer free returns, as long as they come to your store and return the products in person
• Offer paid returns so you can discourage the wide use of bracketing or at least cover the costs of your return
• Analytics so you can figure out who the customers are who are engaging in bracketing.

Book a demo with our team to learn more about how our platform can help you deal with bracketing, staging, and wardrobing.