Open the tech pack for almost any kurta and the measurements are exact. Across shoulder, chest, front length, waist and hip are graded size by size, each with a tolerance the buyer signed off before bulk production began. The factory works to those numbers, QC checks against them, and a shipment that misses them can be rejected.
Then the same kurta goes online. The product page shows a five-row chart of body measurements, copied from a template the brand uses for every style it sells, and quite often it is a single image. The garment's actual measurements, the ones the factory spent weeks getting right, never reach the shopper.
That gap between the spec sheet and the product page is where a large share of online fashion returns begin. Closing it needs no new technology, because the data already exists and stops at the wrong desk. Prashant Kumar made the same case for AI imagery, which has to be tested against the real garment before it sells anything, and garment measurements need the same check.
How Much of the Fashion Returns Problem is Fit
The numbers vary by market, but size and fit sit at or near the top almost everywhere returns are measured. Coresight Research estimates the average US online apparel return rate reached 23.4% in 2025 [1].
The European Environment Agency puts the return rate for clothing bought online in Europe at around 20%, with 70% of those returns caused by buyer-perceived poor fit or style [2]. Zalando says half of the items ordered across its markets come back [3], and that size and fit account for up to half of returns in European online fashion [4].
Indian data is thinner and needs reading with care. Unicommerce, drawing on about 900 million transactions, reported customer-initiated returns across all categories falling to 7.8% in 2024, with fashion and accessories making up 30% of order volume [5]. Category rates run far higher. Return Prime data reported by Apparel Resources put returns of clothing and shoes as high as 30% to 35%, with size concerns behind almost 40% of returned merchandise [6]. Rest of World reported in 2023 that Myntra and Flipkart had started charging some customers who return too often [7], as ASOS has done with fees for customers who return lots of items, which is a fair guide to what returns cost the platforms.
The cost is more than a reverse shipment. The British Fashion Council's work on returns estimated that processing each online return costs a retailer 55% to 75% of the product's retail price [8]. The EEA estimates that between 22% and 43% of clothing returned after an online purchase in Europe is destroyed [2], and a US study found that more than 90% of the emissions from fashion returns come from transport alone [19].
Shoppers have their own workaround. They order two sizes and send one back. In a KPMG survey of 3,000 UK consumers, 13% said they buy several items in one order to find the size that fits and return the rest, and a third said they only ever return an item when the size is wrong [9]. Bracketing is how shoppers cope with a size chart they don't trust, and each bracketed order ships with at least one return already planned.
