Dive Brief:
- Nearly a quarter of U.S. consumers have bought a product based on an AI recommendation. Of those, nearly half (46%) have returned an item in the past year, according to a Blue Yonder survey.
- Among U.S. shoppers who returned an AI-recommended purchase, the most common reasons were that it was different than described (36%) or an incorrect size or fit (23%).
- Over half of U.S. respondents (51%) said they have decided to buy from one retailer over another purely because it had a better returns policy.
Dive Insight:
Despite the promise of deeper personalization, AI agents aren’t yet able to bypass the thorny issue of returns. However, the reasons for the return of AI-recommended products differ from those in more traditional retail channels.
While incorrect size or fit is the most common factor leading to U.S. returns in general (42%), according to the survey, the most frequently cited problem with AI-recommended products is that the item doesn’t live up to its description. AI assistants may be doing a better job of finding the right fit, but they struggle with describing products accurately, and the culprit is most likely the information retailers are offering up to answer engines.
“Shoppers are taking AI’s advice faster than retailers are getting ready for it, and nearly half of them are sending something back,” Duncan Angove, CEO of Blue Yonder, said in a statement. “That’s not really an AI problem. It’s a data problem. An AI assistant is only as good as the product information it can find, and most product data was written for a search bar, not for a machine suggesting products for someone. When what arrives doesn’t match what the shopper expected, it goes back in the box.”
Consumers are increasingly turning to AI assistants, especially among younger generations. Nearly a third of teenagers said they trusted AI-generated product recommendations over a friend, according to a recent Mastercard survey.
Of the 2,000 U.S. shoppers surveyed by Blue Yonder, 43% of Gen Z bought a product based on an AI recommendation, compared to 36% of millennials, 19% of Gen X and 9% of baby boomers.
But trust in these platforms remains shaky. A recent survey by SmartCustomer found that the majority of shoppers (89%) don’t fully trust AI recommendations. Additionally, a third of those respondents said they made a regrettable purchase based on an AI recommendation.
In this environment, shoppers remain quick to punish retailers with restrictive return policies by taking their business elsewhere. In fact, nearly one-third (29%) of respondents said they have gone so far as to stop shopping altogether at a retailer that implemented a stricter return policy in the last year, according to Blue Yonder. And with AI tools often surfacing more options than traditional search, according to research from RTB House, consumers can find an alternative when the first option doesn’t fit the bill.
