Designing a returns policy that protects margin

Most returns policies are written for the honest majority and exploited by the dishonest minority. Free returns, long windows, no questions asked: great marketing, and an open invitation to abusers.

The impulse is to tighten the policy for everyone. The problem is that generous returns genuinely drive conversion. Punishing everyone to stop a few is bad math.

A better design keeps the public policy generous and adds a decision layer behind it. Every return request gets scored on customer history, and the policy is enforced per customer: instant approvals for the honest, warnings for the borderline, denials for the clear abusers.

This is how you keep the marketing promise and the margin. The policy on the page stays the same. What changes is that the people gaming it discover it is no longer free.