I feel bad about returning things, and only buy with the assumption that I'll be keeping the item. (For example, in my cart is a few different ~$100 sandals of

I feel bad about returning things, and only buy with the assumption that I'll be keeping the item. (For example, in my cart is a few different ~$100 sandals of one brand. I've hesitated to purchase one, since I don't know whether I can risk a 9 non-wide in my preferred style&color. I won't be able to tell whether it fits me well enough until I wear it outside awhile, at which point it's obviously been used on someone's foot, so I'm not going to return it.) (I also contort my Amazon and Walmart orders, to try to keep them from shipping together items that I know are likely to get damaged that way.) Yet, the rate of defective and damaged items that arrive from online purchases is high enough, that I've gotten past much of the discomfort for those returns. (For example, this week, I returned some supposedly brand-name diningware, which the brand's customer service themselves suggested was counterfeit because they simply don't sell it in that branded retail packaging. I'd contacted the brand because the product didn't look quite like the previous one I bought of that brand, in a toxically-tainted-materials kind of way. Guilt-free, annoyed return.) So I figured I have a normal level of return, as a result of returning obviously defective/damaged items... until I saw this article claim the online return rate is "almost 30 percent". If I had a retail business with someone doing 30% returns (outside some program for trying on clothing at home for sizing), I would want to fire that customer. (And for the official clothing try-on-for-sizing program, I't try to throw innovations at that, to get the returns down.)