The global eCommerce market is on a massive growth trajectory, but it also brings an equally massive operational challenge: the high cost of returns. In 2025, total returns for the retail industry reached a staggering $850 billion, with nearly 20% of all online sales sent back.

Peripheral to this multi-billion dollar boomerang is a consumer behavior known as “bracketing” – where shoppers buy multiple sizes or colors of a single item with the explicit intention of returning the ones that don’t work out.

While it’s a behavior retailers frequently overestimate, bracketing still accounts for nearly 10% of returns across apparel and footwear, and its impact on margins is anything but small. Returnalyze, a specialized returns-prevention platform, has studied this behavior extensively, and the data points to a clear opportunity for retailers willing to act.

The Bracketing Epidemic

Today, bracketing is a mainstream “try-before-you-commit” behavior, particularly among younger demographics. (Over 51% of Gen Z shoppers admit to purchasing this way.) Generous return policies, such as free returns and long return windows, actively reinforce this risk-free shopping mentality.

Aside from the inventory distortion of units tied up in transit, return logistics can cost up to 59% of an item’s original price, further impacting already tight margins. Fashion absorbs the brunt of this cost, as clothing and footwear remain the most frequently returned categories at 39% and 37%, respectively.

Bracketing Meets Its Match

To combat this margin-crushing impact, retailers are increasingly turning to AI. Solutions today range from AI-powered size recommendation engines that guide shoppers to the right fit on the first try, to smart return policies that trigger “keep it” refunds when reverse logistics costs exceed a product’s value.

Where purpose-built AI platforms like Returnalyze go further is in transforming raw return data into targeted, actionable prevention strategies. Rather than broad fixes, Returnalyze pinpoints the specific behaviors and product-level issues driving bracketing with four core capabilities:

• Deep Root Cause Analysis: The platform’s multi-dimensional analytics go beyond basic customer feedback by actively evaluating bracketing behavior alongside product attributes, quality, and shipping data. This allows Returnalyze to distill the reasons why customers feel compelled to bracket a particular product.
• Customer Behavior Pattern Recognition: Returnalyze’s AI algorithms track and identify specific customer behavioral patterns around bracketing, exchanges, and repurchasing, then deliver prescriptive recommendations on which behaviors to capitalize on versus which require immediate course correction.
• Distinguish Genuine Shoppers from Resellers: The Returnalyze platform analyzes multi-item purchasing patterns to help retailers differentiate between a shopper bracketing for size and suspicious reseller activity, where a customer buys multiple sizes or colors of the same item to resell.
• Eliminate the Need to Bracket with Sizing and Fit Solutions:  Because bracketing is heavily driven by size uncertainty, Returnalyze identifies specific fit anomalies early in the product lifecycle. Retailers can then act on the platform’s recommendations to update size guides or add fit direction on the product page – such as “runs small” or “runs large”. By giving shoppers the right information upfront, it eliminates the sizing guesswork that causes bracketing in the first place.

New Report Proves the Point

Returnalyze’s 2025 Peak-Season Returns Performance Report demonstrates this powerful opportunity for retailers. It shows that while size-bracketing in apparel and footwear has generally increased year over year, retailers with a proactive returns-prevention strategy held their return rates virtually flat – proof that the right intelligence makes all the difference.

By recognizing bracketing as a systemic issue rather than an unavoidable cost of doing business, brands can shift the paradigm – intercepting bracketing upstream, before a return label is ever printed.

FAQ

What is bracketing behavior in E-commerce?

Bracketing is a consumer shopping behavior in which customers intentionally order multiple sizes or colors of the same item, with plans to return whatever doesn’t work out. It’s essentially a “try-before-you-commit” approach to online shopping. The behavior accounts for nearly 10% of all returns across apparel and footwear and is especially prevalent among Gen Z shoppers, over 51% of whom admit to purchasing this way. Generous return policies, such as free return shipping and extended return windows, further reinforce the habit.

How does AI-powered return analytics help prevent bracketing?

AI-powered return analytics platforms like Returnalyze go beyond surface-level return data to uncover the root causes of bracketing at the product level. The platform uses four core capabilities, deep root cause analysis, customer behavior pattern recognition, reseller detection, and fit anomaly identification, to pinpoint exactly why shoppers feel the need to over-order. With those insights, retailers can take targeted action: updating size guides, adding fit direction (such as “runs small” or “runs large”) directly on product pages, and flagging suspicious purchasing patterns, all before a return label is ever printed.

How much do retail returns cost the industry?

The numbers are staggering. In 2025, total retail industry returns hit $850 billion, with nearly 20% of all online purchases returned. The operational toll is equally steep;  return logistics can cost up to 59% of an item’s original sale price. For fashion retailers already operating on tight margins, bracketing significantly increases costs, making a proactive returns prevention strategy essential to protecting profitability.

Which product categories are most affected by bracketing?

Clothing and footwear bear the heaviest burden. Apparel has the highest return rate at 39%, followed closely by footwear at 37%. Because bracketing is overwhelmingly driven by size and fit uncertainty, these categories are disproportionately impacted. When a shopper isn’t confident their usual size will fit a particular brand or style, ordering two or three sizes feels like the safest bet, and the cost of that uncertainty lands squarely on the retailer.

How much do retail returns cost the industry?

Absolutely. Returnalyze’s 2025 Peak-Season Returns Performance Report shows that while size-bracketing in apparel and footwear increased year over year industry-wide, retailers with a proactive, data-driven returns prevention strategy managed to hold their return rates virtually flat. The takeaway is clear: bracketing isn’t an unavoidable cost of doing business. With the right AI-powered intelligence, brands can intercept the behavior upstream, improving sizing information, refining product pages, and flagging high-risk patterns before they become costly returns.