Return fees and delivery pricing have shifted significantly over the past two years. Return windows, by contrast, have barely moved. Here's what the benchmark data shows, and why the exceptions matter more than the norm.
The 28–30 day norm
Approximately three quarters of the UK's top 100 fashion retailers offer a return window of 28 to 30 days. That figure has remained stable between 2023 and 2026, even as return fees and other e-commerce policy levers have shifted meaningfully.
The 28–30 day window sits well above the UK and EU statutory minimum of 14 days for distance selling. It has become a market default that's familiar to customers, broadly uncontested, and rarely questioned internally.
Yet the biggest cost of returns isn't shipping or processing but discounting and liquidation when items return after the full-price selling window has closed. Items that miss their season often end up in markdown, liquidation, or waste, while retailers overproduce by 30–50% to compensate for expected returns. Return windows are a time problem, not a shipping problem.
The 14-day strategy
In 2026, 16% of the UK's top 100 fashion retailers offer a 14-day return window, down slightly from 20% in 2023. It gets even more interesting as we look at the segment breakdown. No mass market or premium brands offer a 14-day window. Among affordable luxury and luxury brands, 32% do so.
Consider Harrods — a luxury brand associated with generous customer policies — which reduced its return window to 14 days. If Harrods determined that 14 days was sufficient for its customer base, it raises a reasonable question about whether longer windows serve a clear strategic purpose for other segments.
The pattern extends beyond the UK. Across Scandinavia, brands including GANNI, Holzweiler, and Filippa K in the mid-market and TOTEME and Acne Studios in luxury all operate at or near the 14-day legal minimum. Shorter return windows are not incompatible with strong brands.
Customers move fast, return policies are slow
To understand how quickly customers actually act, Ingrid tracked the average time between order creation and the moment the customer initiates a return. This measures the decision and action phase, not the full end-to-end cycle of shipping, warehouse receipt, and refund.
Across September to December 2025, behavior was remarkably consistent across markets. The UK averaged 12.4 days. The Nordics averaged 12.5 days. Most customers are already initiating returns within a timeframe that aligns closely with a 14-day window.
One premium UK brand we work with moved to a 14-day window and found that stock was out of circulation for an average of only eight days. Compare that to the 20–25 day cycles common elsewhere, and the inventory implications become clear.
Shorter windows reduce the risk of items missing their selling window entirely. Psychologically, most customers know within minutes of trying an item whether they intend to keep it. A 30-day window does not serve the decision-making process but rather delays action.
The stock economics behind shorter windows
Higher-value, lower-stock brands have a different return period calculus. Collections are smaller, production runs are shorter, and selling windows are tighter. Dresses returned on day 28 may arrive back in the warehouse after the full-price window has already narrowed. The same garments returned on day 12 have a materially better chance of being resold without markdown.
This explains why shorter windows cluster at the premium end of the market. The margin risk per day of delay outweighs the operational cost per return. Luxury brands tend toward shorter windows because they hold thinner stock and cannot afford items to be out of circulation for extended periods. Mass market brands have largely defaulted to 30 days, perhaps assuming it is a competitive necessity. The data suggests the 14-day assumption is worth testing.
Emerging return policies
Some brands are experimenting with tiered structures, such as free returns within the first seven days and a modest fee thereafter to encourage faster action without removing flexibility entirely.
This type of model allows brands to maintain a reasonable return window on paper while using pricing to nudge customer behavior toward the earlier end of that window. It combines the commercial benefits of a shorter effective return cycle with the customer-facing perception of a standard policy.
Extreme policies are also pulling back. Brands that previously offered extended periods — 60 days, 90 days, or longer — introduced during the pandemic have generally moved back toward the 28–30 day standard. The market is converging around the norm, with fewer outliers at either end.
The bottom line
Return windows have received less attention than return fees over the past two years. For most retailers, the 28–30 day standard has held steady and remained uncontested.
The segment-level data, however, tells a different story for higher-end brands. Nearly a third of affordable luxury and luxury retailers have chosen 14-day windows. Customer behavior data shows the average return initiation already falls within that timeframe. And brands operating with shorter windows are seeing significantly faster stock recovery — with direct implications for markdown exposure and contribution margin.
For retailers evaluating their own return window policies, the question is not whether 14 days is viable. Harrods, GANNI, TOTEME, and others have already answered that. The question is whether a 30-day default is still the right commercial choice for their specific inventory profile.
This article draws on findings from Return Economics 2026, a joint publication by Ingrid Returns, Harper, and Limesharp, which benchmarks return policies across the UK's top 100 fashion retailers.
