Fashion E-commerce Benchmarks

Why these numbers look like this

Fashion's 24% average refund rate is the highest of any industry we track, driven almost entirely by sizing inconsistency across brands and the expectation of free returns. This creates a double margin hit: stores eat both the shipping cost on returns and the 15% ad spend to acquire customers who may not keep what they order. Seasonal inventory risk compounds the problem — unsold seasonal stock typically gets discounted 40-60%, turning profitable gross margin into break-even or worse.