I find it weird that someone would argue for a worse retail experience. People make mistakes, it's great that people can return stuff that it turns out they don

I find it weird that someone would argue for a worse retail experience. People make mistakes, it's great that people can return stuff that it turns out they don't need or won't work. As to why retailers do it, I think it's a combination of: a. Regulations - many jurisdictions have a requirement that retailers accept returns for some period. This is great because it makes fraud on the retailer's part extremely unprofitable - customers can just return fraudulently marketed products. b. Competition - one thing that both Walmart and Amazon did was lower the bar for returns. In the 90s Walmart would often accept returns even without a receipt, which was a competitive advantage against other retailers that had more restrictive policies. Amazon did something similar for online retail by paying for shipping of returned items. c. Encouraging impulse buys - Having a high bar for researching purchases means that impulse buys are much less likely. If you're in a store and you see a microwave you really like, knowing that you can return it makes it more likely you will buy it right then and there. If you have to go home and confirm a bunch of dimensions, it's more likely you won't return for the microwave as emotions will have cooled. Edit: Addressing fashion specifically. There are many factors that can make something that works in a fitting room turn out to later be ill suited. First, it's not uncommon to be buying a top or pants to go with other clothing in one's wardrobe. Unless you bring all that stuff with you when you go shopping, it's only possible to guess whether things will work out while in a fitting room. There's also a level of wishful thinking that can happen when trying on clothes - where you make it fit by sucking in your gut or something that can mask the fact that clothing won't work. Long term comfort is also impossible to ascertain in a fitting room. This is especially applicable to shoes - where they might be comfy for the 5 minutes in the store, but start to hurt after 30 minutes to an hour. Finally, it's impossible to tell how much something will shrink in the wash when you buy it. Some stuff that fits perfectly "off the rack" will no longer fit properly after it has been through the washer/dryer.