32%
returns rate
in June
Case studyReturns & fit · Bareback Footwear
A boot that fits
doesn't come back.
Returns are a photography and information problem long before they are a logistics one. Four changes to the product page, four months, and the returns rate fell from 32% to 21%. This is what changed, in the order it changed.
21%
returns rate
by September
−34%
fewer boots
coming back
4
changes to the page,
none to the boots
One boot in three came back.
A riding boot is an awkward thing to buy without trying on. It has to fit the foot, the instep, the calf and the height of the leg, and a customer sitting at a kitchen table has one photograph and a size chart to go on. So they guess. When the guess is wrong the boot comes back, the postage is paid twice, and the stock is out of play for weeks.
The instinct is to treat that as a logistics problem: cheaper labels, faster refunds. It is not one. If the customer can see the boot properly and knows how it fits before they buy, the boot stays. So the work went into the product page, not the returns desk, and none of it touched the boots themselves.
1
360° scans, coded into the page
Fifteen frames per boot, drag to spin, built into the theme rather than bolted on with an app. The frames are stacked as real images and cross-faded, so the spin never stutters, and nothing loads until the customer is near it. No more guessing what the back of the heel or the inside of the calf looks like.
2
A 1–5 fit level on the size row
Every core boot carries a fit level from one, runs small, to five, runs large. It sits on the size row itself, at the moment of the decision, not three clicks away in a generic size guide. The value is stored against each product, so the page, the emails and the customer service team all read the same number.
Fit scale
Runs small
Slightly small
True to size
Slightly large
Runs large
Across the 121 boots that carry a level, 64 run true to size, 30 run slightly large, 13 run small and 13 run large. That spread is exactly the information a customer needs and never used to have.
3
Advice that changes as you pick a size
Choose a size and the guidance beneath it changes: whether to go down if you are between sizes, what the calf and height measure for that boot, and a separate line for men buying a boot cut on a women's last. Surfaced at the decision, not after it.
Runs slightly large.
Your usual size should be right. If you’re between sizes, go down.
Men: stick to your typical size, or size up if you’re between sizes.
4
Then we ask, after it arrives
Six days after the order, once the boots have actually been worn, an email asks how they feel: heel, toes, calf and instep. It offers a free exchange for sixty days, and the answers rewrite the fit levels on the page. The flow splits on order history, so a first-time buyer sees the exchange promise first and a repeat customer sees the fit question first.
Over the last twelve months the two arms opened at 59% and 68%. People answer, because the question arrives when they have just put the boots on.
Returns rate · four months to date
−34%
Jun · 32%
Jul
Aug
Sep · 21%
Vertical axis runs 18–34% so the change is legible: eleven points of returns rate, taken out and held there.
Eleven points came out in four months and stayed out. Nothing about the boots changed. Nothing about the price changed. The customer simply knew what they were buying, and the boot they chose was the boot that fitted.
At £6.3m of turnover, a third fewer returns is a lot of boots that stayed sold, and a lot of postage, handling and re-boxing that never happened. It is also the reason the returns section sits inside the growth story rather than beside it: what customers say about fit decides the next range, the next photograph and the next ad.
Fit belongs on the size row
Not in a size guide, not in a tab. Wherever the customer makes the decision is where the information has to be.
Ask after delivery, then feed it back
The best fit data a brand has is the customer who has just put the product on. Ask them, and let the answer change the page.
Photography is a returns tool
A 360 view is not a nice-to-have on a considered purchase. It is the difference between a guess and a decision.