Online fast fashion brand Asos will start charging some of its customers for returning clothes.
It is the latest retailer to impose the cost after similar moves by Zara and Boohoo.
The £3.85 charge for returns will come into effect from October 8 – but not all customers will be forced to pay.
It will only be for ‘a small group of UK customers with a frequently high return rate’, the company said.
If shoppers keep £40 or more of an order, they will not have to pay to return the rest. And if they already pay £9.95 a year to be an ‘Asos premier’ member, they only have to keep £15 worth.
Online fast fashion brand Asos will start charging some of its customers to return their clothes
It is the latest retailer to impose the cost after similar moves by Zara and Boohoo (stock image)
Most customers who order from Asos, which was founded in 2000, are Gen Z or millennials.
Some were irked by the change and said they had no choice to return garments as the brand’s sizes were unreliable.
One wrote on social media: ‘These online stores need to get a grip – people are returning clothes because the sizing is TRASH and we can’t try them on before we buy.’
Another said: ‘If you don’t want returns, open physical stores.’
Asos would not say how it was deciding which customers were repeat offenders.
Online shoppers often order the same product in an array of different sizes and colours.
But retailers have been scrambling to reduce the cost of goods being sent back – especially as British firms like Asos and Boohoo come up against Chinese rivals Shein and Temu.
Three in four returned items of clothing are dumped in landfill or burnt due to processing fees, according to data firm Statista.