The Real Reason Black Friday Return Rates Rise and How to Stop It

On paper, the weekend looks identical. Big sales, busy dashboards, and lots of reasons to celebrate. Then December hits, and things stop matching the story you expected. One brand stays steady. The other starts watching returns climb just fast enough to take the shine off the whole campaign.  

Here’s the part most teams miss. The difference has nothing to do with the discount you chose or how loud the campaign was. It comes down to something that affects how confidently people buy in the first place. That confidence shapes not only what shoppers order, but what they actually keep.  

Last year, after diving into the data across several retailers, one factor kept popping up repeatedly. The brands that got it right held onto more of the revenue they earned. The ones that didn’t felt their peak shrink by mid-December.  

Now let’s walk through what really creates that split, and how one brand used it to turn a seasonal spike into something that lasted.

Here is the truth that most people know. Black Friday makes shoppers move faster than they normally would. They scroll quickly, they decide quickly, and they guess their size more than they admit. It feels small in the moment, but on a weekend where millions of people shop at once, those guesses pile up.

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This is exactly where the story changes.

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If a shopper is unsure about their size, they still check out during Black Friday because the deal is good and the pressure is high. Yet when their package arrives, that uncertainty catches up. The fit is off, or the item feels different than expected, and suddenly the return volume rises. Not because the product is bad, but because the decision was rushed.

Brands may blame the return spike on seasonality or the nature of discounts, but when zooming in, a significant issue is that people did not feel secure in the size they chose.

The upside, however, is when shoppers do feel sure about the size they pick, everything changes. They buy just as quickly, but the return boxes do not come back in waves. Profit stays where it belongs, and the campaign actually ends the way it should.

That is exactly what happened with one fashion brand we worked with last year. Their shoppers felt confident in choosing the right size, and that certainty carried them through the rest of the quarter.

To bring this to life with a real example from last year, let’s look at what happened when one brand integrated SAIZ across their PDPs. They didn’t overhaul their campaign strategy; they simply added SAIZ and used the insights that came with it. What followed was a clear shift in how shoppers behaved and, more importantly, in what they kept.

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Here is what the numbers showed.

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In one men’s jacket category, the return rate dropped from 35% in October to 27% in December with SAIZ. For shoppers who did not use SAIZ, returns fell from 39% to 32% in the same period.

The effect became even clearer in the women’s jacket category. Return rates for shoppers using SAIZ dropped from 46% in October to 36% in December, while non-SAIZ shoppers moved only from 47% to 45%.

With that said, when many brands expect returns to climb, this brand saw the opposite. SAIZ users sent fewer items back, even as sales surged, and the reduction was meaningful enough to change how the entire category performed that quarter.  

This is the moment the brand realized something important. When shoppers feel confident about the size they choose, Black Friday is not followed by a wave of returns. The campaign stays strong long after the weekend ends, and more of the revenue actually remains in the business.