How ASOS and Zalando Tackled Serial Returns in 2025.
By Christian Endresen <> January 2026.
In 2025, fashion e-commerce leaders began taking a more data-driven and assertive approach to reducing excessive returns.
Brands like ASOS and Zalando focused less on blanket policies and more on profitability, customer behavior, and smarter segmentation.
ASOS: Optimizing for Profitability, Not Volume
ASOS improved profitability by more than 35% by actively managing return behavior instead of treating all customers equally.
Key initiatives included:
Increasing marketing spend on loyal, low-return customers
Reducing exposure to unprofitable serial returners
Measuring returns at both customer and product level
Applying rule-based payment options at checkout
Introducing variable return policies
Blocking repeat return abusers
The approach shows that returns management is not just operational, but a core commercial lever.
Zalando: Shorter Return Windows and Smarter Data Use
Starting January 7, 2025, Zalando reduced its return window from 100 days to 30 days. The goal was to avoid temporary out-of-stock issues, reduce end-of-season overstock, and keep popular styles available.
Zalando reported that around 90% of returns already happen within 30 days, suggesting limited impact on most customers. However, return policies still matter at conversion, as 60 to 70% of new shoppers review return convenience before purchasing.
Beyond return windows, Zalando focuses heavily on returns data. Through its operating system ZEOS, products and markets are grouped by net merchandise value and return rates to guide decisions.
The four clusters are:
Low net sales and high returns, which require reevaluation
High sales but high returns, which need optimization
Low sales and low returns, which may have growth potential
High sales and low returns, which deserve maximum investment
Key Takeaway
High return rates are not inevitable in fashion e-commerce. By combining smarter policies with clear data segmentation, brands can reduce returns, improve profitability, and protect customer experience at the same time.
Returns are a shared responsibility across production, marketing, and consumption. The brands that treat them strategically gain a lasting competitive advantage.
How Float Makes Enterprise Returns Capabilities Accessible
What ASOS and Zalando built with large teams and custom systems is now available to smaller and mid-sized Shopify merchants through Float.
Float gives growing e-commerce brands access to the same returns intelligence used by enterprise retailers, without the complexity or cost of building it in-house. Out of the box, Float helps merchants segment customers and products by return behavior, apply variable return rules, and act on returns data in real time.
Instead of blanket policies, Float enables smarter decisions. Brands can reward loyal, low-return customers, limit abuse from serial returners, and optimize returns at both product and customer level. All of this integrates directly with Shopify, making it easy to launch and scale.
Returns no longer need to be a cost center reserved for enterprise experimentation. With Float, Shopify merchants can turn returns into a competitive advantage, using the same principles that drive profitability at ASOS and Zalando.