Definition
Return rate
Return rate is the share of orders or units a retailer gets back, usually expressed as a percentage over a defined period. In apparel ecommerce it typically runs 20–30% of orders, several times the rate of most other retail categories, per the NRF and Happy Returns 2025 Retail Returns Landscape.
How you calculate it changes the number, so define it before you compare it. Returns as a share of orders and returns as a share of units give different answers for a store with large baskets, and a rate measured by calendar month will lag the orders that caused it by the length of your return window.
The useful view is by category and by SKU rather than store-wide. An average conceals the distribution, and the distribution is where the money is: a small number of products usually generate a disproportionate share of returned units.
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