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Comment by grandalf | Hacker News Reader

The hard part is not scraping, it's returns. For many kinds of online products, the return rate is over 40%. The shopper must be completely aware of how to contact the merchant of record and how to return the product.

Also, if you are scraping a large retailer you are effectively required to be PCI DSS level 1 compliant, which takes a bit of extra effort.

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Completely agree! Returns and not breaking the retailer's CRM is key in the space. Retailers are happy especially because we're not breaking their relationship with consumers nor obscuring payment/shipping data. It's very difficult to find and build a model that's accepted and actively supported by all stakeholders in the ecommerce space and we're very excited by current efforts in the industry. Long story short, we've had no complaints or confusion from consumers so far on returns, customer support etc. By now most consumers are aware of in-stream or remote buying and following basic guidelines helps a lot too (clearly displaying the retailer logo, user messaging etc)

And yes, PCI DSS compliance is also crucial to storing and handling credentials. We're going through the process again this year at Two Tap, but the effort is worth it.

Are you sure that is true for all retailers of those products?

I deal with a high return rate industry [specialty products many customers can't size correctly] and I only see return rates of 3-7% depending on the product. 40% seems very high.

It's very true for higher end goods. These goods typically are sold with free/cheap shipping and so customers will order 3 sizes of an item and return all but the one that fits.

What are you defining as higher end?

$100? $200? Unusual measurements required? [e.g. Not just a standard size but additional dimensions]

'cause if you are, I'm still standing by my experience.

Probably a bit higher, but not 100% sure. I'd reveal the source of my info but I should probably not do that in a public forum.

I interviewed for a data position at a major internet clothing store last year and they said their return rate was in that ballpark. (I don't fully remember the number)

Clothing has higher than average return rates because people can't anticipate sizing or look. I worked for a food ecommerce site and our return rate was low single digits.

Wow. We must be exceptionally good for some reason then 'cause some of the items I'm talking about are specialty shoes that cost $100+.

What's your website?

It may also be that your customers are comparatively good at predicting their size/fit.

I prefer being publicly anonymous and if I answered your question there is literally only 1 person I could be. I suppose that makes me paranoid but I'd rather not create drama.

For the sake of example, Amazon.com would be sufficiently equivalent as we do sell products via Amazon. And the fact I complain about Amazon in places gives away that we do do that. :P

Zappos has a 35% return rate.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/03/31/get-back

This is strongly correlated with brand values they push in certain marketing campaigns and both returns as well as excellent service are promoted. Flipping it you could say they attract people that do returns more than avg.

Its explicitly designed into Zappo's business model and an intentional side effect. They have a 1 year return policy + free returns specifically to encourage people to send more returns so they are more likely to risk buying things that might not work out.

For the same products, I have a ~9% return rate. :/

That is different than normal return rates.

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