Hashtag moments are both a boon and a bane for fashionable brands. The phrase refers to consumers’ desire to access fashionable and hip products, take pictures of themselves wearing or using them, and then posting those pictures to social media, in their effort to enhance their self-image or reputation. For cool brands, this motivation can be invaluable, because posters seeking to become influencers actively work to obtain the latest offerings.
But the trend also has a downside. As savvy social media users know, the images posted for public consumption often are less than realistic. Accordingly, some aspirational influencers purchase fashionable brands, tuck away the tags, and snap a picture wearing the great “lewk,” then package everything back up and return it for a refund. That is, they wear the apparel only for the picture that they post, without maintaining ownership of the items for any longer than it takes to pose for and click a good shot.
For retailers like Asos, such activities wind up being expensive and challenging. Returns are inherently expensive for retailers, because they require a reverse logistics system, take up valuable human resource efforts to receive and check the products, and potentially diminish the price that the returned items can fetch, if they can no longer be sold as new.
Therefore, Asos recently alerted customers who had signed up to receive notifications from the company that it would be getting tougher when it came to returns. For most shoppers, it promised little difference: As long as they return unwanted items within 28 days, they can get a full refund. If they return after that time but within 45 days of purchase, they can have a store credit. But if it identifies “serial returners,” such that they constantly and repeatedly return products, it will clamp down and potentially deactivate the account. Without specifying what it means by serial returners or when return activity begins to appear suspicious, Asos warned shoppers that it was aware of the practice of buying for hashtag moments. The updated return policy also was posted on its website.
Asos noted explicitly that the change was unlikely to affect most of its customers. Yet a recent survey in the United Kingdom revealed that approximately 10 percent of respondents admitted to buying products just to wear one time, so that they could post a picture on social media. Thus it may be affecting more people than anticipated.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is Asos doing to reduce excessive customer returns?
2. How would this strategy affect the financial ratios discussed in Chapter 6?
3. If you were consulting with Asos about its customer return problem, would you advise it to adopt this new policy? Why or why not?

Source: Ben Sillitoe, Essential Retail, April 4, 2019