Give gifts without worries - SureBright protects every purchase
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Last year, a swim diaper seller received a return. The box looked sealed and wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, so it got restocked. A new customer opens the package… and finds a clearly used diaper inside.
The buyer is furious. The seller is mortified. Amazon apologizes and moves on.
This is far from the first time this has happened. Much like how an estimated $37 billion in chargeback approvals from 2023 to now has helped credit card companies build trust with consumers, Amazon’s famous customer-first returns policy helped it become the largest ecommerce platform in the world. Customers feel safe buying almost anything, knowing they can almost always just return it.
The problem? That same policy has created a brutal operating reality for a meaningful portion of sellers, especially those running without the help of multimillion-dollar corporations.
And while this isn’t true for every merchant on the platform, the group feeling pressure from returns abuse, fees, and lack of control is far from small.
Let’s unpack why more vendors are quietly rethinking their relationship with the platform.
Most shoppers don’t think about what happens behind the “Buy Now” button. Merchants do, and it’s not because they have nothing better to do. It’s because every return decision ripples through their business.
A lot of this comes down to FBA, or Fulfilled by Amazon. Under FBA, sellers send inventory to company warehouses.
The warehouses then handle storage, shipping, customer service, and returns. It’s convenient, but it also means businesses give up control. That lack of control matters when return windows stretch far beyond what many businesses would choose on their own.
And while the average return window is 30 days, it feels more grueling around specific times of the year. The result of this during the holiday season? Returns start piling up in droves.
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In practice, this means:
Add the FBA’s reverse logistics fees, processing costs, and reimbursement disputes into the mix, and returns quickly stop being a customer experience issue and start becoming an operational liability.
To be clear: this policy isn’t inherently bad. It’s a major reason customers trust the ecommerce platform in the first place. But that trust has also created an environment where abuse is effectively baked into the system, and a lot of vendors are the ones left paying for it.
Return abuse isn’t a fringe issue anymore.
Recent consumer surveys show that nearly 39% of shoppers admit they or someone they know engaged in return policy abuse in the past year. More than 54% of those shoppers say they shop with the intent to return some items.
For sellers, that abuse shows up in familiar patterns.
Wardrobing is one of the most common methods in which returns happen. A customer buys an item, uses it once, and returns it as “new.” This is especially common with apparel, tools, electronics, and event-based purchases.
Then there’s bracketing: shoppers order multiple sizes or colors with the intention of keeping only one. This hurts merchants because of the costs involved in processing each item’s return.
More blatant are empty box or “bricking” scams, where customers return stripped electronics or send back boxes filled with junk.
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And increasingly, businesses report counterfeit swaps, where a cheap knockoff is returned in place of a genuine product.
“So I bought a monitor two years ago and I accidentally spilled water on it and some of the pixels aren’t working anymore. I’m thinking of buying the same monitor ($180) from Amazon and switching them out and returning it. I’ve done this trick like 4-5 times in the past five years.”
- A shopper on reddit
On the subreddit r/AmazonSellers, hundreds of vendors discuss the pros and cons of working with the marketplace.
“50% of our returns now are fraudulent or abusive.”
- A merchant asking for support on reddit
While the platform may eventually flag abusive buyers, a lot of businesses must deal with the fallout right now, while fighting claims for weeks just to recover a fraction of the product’s value.
At a certain point, the numbers just stop working. Processing a return can cost anywhere between 20% to 65% of an item’s value. On average, one return costs around $25 to handle, before considering lost inventory or fraud.
It’s no surprise, then, that about 65% of merchants raised prices in 2024, citing fees and returns costs as major drivers.
But raising prices creates a new problem. Higher prices push customers toward cheaper alternatives. Meanwhile, the platform still collects its fees either way.
This is why some merchants feel trapped. They can’t price competitively and absorb returns at scale. The platform still profits, but those sellers feel squeezed.
Again, this isn’t universal. Large brands and high-margin businesses can absorb the hit. But for vendors operating at 3–5% margins, return abuse isn’t noise to ignore; it’s existential.
Faced with these realities, many sellers aren’t storming off the online marketplace in protest, they’re just changing their strategy slowly.
Let’s be real, with the visibility and ease of purchase the platform gives vendors, it becomes hard to remove it entirely as a channel.
A common move is leaning harder into direct-to-consumer (DTC) or hybrid models. The appeal is straightforward:
There are also some cost advantages: while DTC comes with marketing and logistics expenses, businesses can avoid marketplace fees that quietly eat margins over time. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Customer acquisition isn’t cheap, and Amazon’s traffic is unmatched. But for many merchants, after a certain scale, control outweighs convenience.
Shopify-based DTC stores are the most common alternative. Here, it’s easier to set clear expectations, which then tend to lower return rates.
Walmart Marketplace offers similar optics with slightly more seller flexibility. Many brands report return rates closer to their own sites with this option.
Niche marketplaces like Reverb, Etsy, and StockX attract more intentional buyers. Built-in authentication, category expertise, or community norms reduce abuse and make returns feel more legitimate.
“Reverb's Safe Shipping option covers unscrupulous buyers who invent fake problems and imaginary reasons to return things. Rather than being forced to accept returns, you just let Reverb support deal with the person.”
- A guitar shop owner on Reddit
What ties of these platforms together? Vendors regain a sense of predictability. This, combined with a solid warranty provider like SureBright, will ensure that you don’t have to deal with meaningless returns as much.
None of these alternatives are perfect.
Selling DTC means owning logistics, marketing, and customer experience costs. Plus, returns abuse isn’t exclusive to Amazon. It’s a broader ecommerce problem hurting vendors across the world in a lot of industries. But the deciding factor remains that if another channel aligns better with profit margins, product type, and long-term goals, testing it is often worth the effort.
The marketplace platform still offers reach and trust, and it works for thousands of businesses. However, opting for it just shouldn’t come at the expense of sustained losses in terms of money, time and energy.
Returns aren’t going away. Customers expect them, and in large part because Amazon trained that expectation.
But vendors shouldn’t have to subsidize every return indefinitely.
This is where extended warranties and shipping protection start to matter. Protection plans:
Internally, teams also need to clearly understand the difference between returns and warranties. Treating warranty claims as refunds unnecessarily inflates return costs.
For merchants without a warranty partner, exploring providers like SureBright can meaningfully reduce unnecessary refunds and protect margins without degrading customer trust.
Amazon’s generous returns policy isn’t changing anytime soon, and that’s the reality. It’s core to the brand.
What is changing is how merchants evaluate whether that promise still makes sense for their business. For some, platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Magento offer better long-term control. For others, a hybrid approach works best.
Whether you stay on the platform, build DTC channels, or do both, the goal is the same: protect margins, reduce return abuse, and build sustainable trust.
For sellers ready to stop bleeding money, protection plans are more than simple add-ons, they’re a competitive advantage. If you’re interested in understanding the other ways vendors get scammed, you might want to look into what your peers have to say about chargebacks.
