With the rise in technology over the last few decades, many people prefer to shop in the comfort of their own home, rather than go out and visit a commercial retail property. It may be easier to shop online, but what happens if you do not like an item that you have never seen before and want to return it?
If you are not happy with an item, you have the right to return it to the online retailer within seven days from purchase. However many people only receive the cost of the item back, not the postage cost incurred for returning the parcel. UK online shoppers are covered under the consumer rights law, which states that consumers should be refunded for all costs they incur if they wish to cancel an order, in the designate time frame of seven days.
In a recent study conducted by the European Consumer Centres Network, it was discovered that 174 out of 305 returned purchases failed to have their delivery costs reimbursed. But only 30 of those purchases failed to have any refunds met. The details of refusal were not made public.
The percentage of online retailers not reimbursing the delivery costs has increased by 4 per cent, compared to 8 years ago, when a similar test was conducted.
A spokesperson for the UK European Consumer Centre expressed, “This needs to improve in order to ensure a continuous positive development in cross-border e-commerce.”
However, this is not a problem if people visit commercial properties to do their shopping, rather than online. When shopping in a retail commercial property, consumers have the advantage of seeing an actual item, touching it, trying it on and taking it with them there and then. All of which you cannot do via a computer screen. If you are not happy with an item, you can just simply return it to the commercial property within 30 days, with your receipt. There is no need to worry about seeking delivery costs. When shopping online, you also have to arrange for someone to be in, waiting for the parcel to arrive if it is too big for the letter box.
The Co-operative Group recently conducted a study which found that 60 per cent of people had to ask a friend or member of the family to wait in for their parcel. Usually the delivery windows are either a five hour slot in the morning or five hours in the afternoon, which can take up a large chunk of someone’s day.
Even so, it does raise the question as to why online food shopping has increased so much over the past few years, when you have no influence over what goes in your trolley. Many people spend a good few minutes in a food commercial property picking over the best apples and ensuring they have no dinted tins. But if you do your food shop online, you have no say as to what is picked. Obviously you can request ‘no bruised apples’, but at the end of the day the supermarkets can give you what they like.
Nevertheless, some things have improved since the last study conducted in 2003. The delivery times have gotten better over the last few years, with the majority of items being delivered within 14 days. Also improved was the variety of different languages available on a number of websites, which offers consumers in different countries the ability to order products that they may not have been able to a few years ago.
