Size Charts Shoppers Can Trust

The returns that arrive in January

The parcels that come back in January are mostly clothes, footwear and gear: jackets, boots, gloves, the shirt bought as a present. The reason on the return slip is usually the same. It did not fit.

Each one costs shipping, someone's time to inspect and restock it, and sometimes a markdown, because a winter jacket returned in January has fewer weeks left to sell.

Some returns are unavoidable. Many start on the product page, with a size chart that sent the shopper to the wrong size.

The chart looked authoritative. It was simply describing something other than the item in the box.

Where size charts go wrong

• Copied from a supplier, for a different line or season.
• Silent about what it measures: the body, or the garment.
• One chart for every brand the shop carries.
• One unit only, when shoppers think in both.
• Hidden behind a link to a PDF.
• No word on styles that run small or large.

The second does the quiet damage. A body chart describes the person who will wear the item, while a garment chart describes the item itself, laid flat.

Read one as the other and the shopper orders a size off, from a chart that looks correct to everyone.

Measure your own stock

The only chart you can vouch for is one made from the stock on your own shelves.

Lay one of each style flat and measure the same points the same way every time: chest from armpit to armpit, length from the top of the shoulder to the hem, sleeve from the shoulder seam to the cuff.

Footwear gets the inside length of the insole. Write it all down by style rather than by brand, since one maker's slim and regular fits are different garments.

It takes a few minutes per style, once, and again only when a style changes.

Show shoppers how to measure

A chart of numbers needs instructions beside it, or people guess.

Give two routes. The first is the body: a tape around the chest under the arms, around the waist where trousers sit, and the foot traced on paper from heel to longest toe.

The second is often better: lay a garment that already fits well on a table, measure it the way you measured your stock, and compare like with like.

Show inches and centimetres side by side. Shoppers here think in both, and every conversion is one more chance to get it wrong.

Say when something runs small

Staff who handle the stock know which styles run small, which are cut loose, and which jacket is meant to go over a sweater. That knowledge rarely reaches the website.

Put it on the product page in plain words: runs small, most customers order one size up. A line like that answers the question the shopper is really asking, which no table does.

Your returns show which styles need it, if someone records the reason for each one by product. Be as honest when a style runs large.

Put the chart beside the size buttons

A link to a size guide at the foot of the page is easy to miss, and on a phone a PDF opens as a separate document in tiny type.

Show each style's own measurements on its product page, next to where the size is chosen, as a simple table that fits a phone screen.

One chart can serve a whole range when it genuinely fits every item in it. It should still be the right chart for that product, not the shop's general one.

A worked example

A public golf course runs a pro shop beside the first tee, and for three seasons it has sold logo shirts, quarter-zip pullovers, rain jackets and gloves through a small online store.

Most of its December online orders were gifts. In the first weeks of January a pile of returns came back, almost all shirts and pullovers, almost all too small.

The store used one size chart for all its apparel, copied years ago from its original shirt supplier's catalogue.

Two seasons back, the pullovers had moved to another supplier, whose sizes are cut closer to the body. The chart never changed, and it never said that it listed body measurements.

On a quiet afternoon the pro shop staff laid one of each style flat and measured it. Each product page now shows that style's own measurements, in inches and centimetres, beside the size buttons.

The pullover carries a line saying it is cut close and most buyers go up a size, and a short guide explains how to measure a shirt the wearer already owns.

Gifts make sizing harder

Much of what comes back in January was bought by someone other than the person meant to wear it.

A gift buyer cannot measure the wearer without spoiling the surprise, which is why the route through a garment borrowed from their wardrobe matters most here.

Make exchanges for size simple, and say so on the product page as well as on the returns page. A buyer who knows a wrong size can be swapped has one less reason to hesitate.

The counter-case

Not every product needs a chart.

Hats sold small to large, adjustable gear and items where fit barely matters need a line of guidance, not a table. A store selling one brand whose charts match its stock can use them, once checked.

No chart prevents every return, either. Some shoppers order two sizes intending to send one back, and some gifts are simply not wanted.

Start with the best sellers and the styles that come back most, and give each its own measurements and an honest note on fit.

Before the next order

1. List this month's returns by product and reason.
2. Measure one of each best-selling style flat.
3. Replace copied charts with your own measurements.
4. Note the styles that run small or large.
5. Explain how to measure a garment that fits.
6. Move each chart beside the size buttons.
7. Show both inches and centimetres.

Step four is the quickest fix on the list. It needs no tape measure, only the staff who already know the stock, and the note can go on the page today.

The other January job on a store's site is covered in the home page still selling Christmas.

Frequently asked questions

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