29th January 2026
£1.55bn-worth of unwanted items headed back to sellers post-Christmas, with returns costing retailers £60bn a year. Every return generates up to 4.2kg of CO2 and UK fashion returns alone generate 1.1m tonnes of CO2 annually. The home delivery expert Parcelhero asks, ‘Is it time to repeal the 2013 Consumer Contracts Regulations "cooling-off" period for online purchases?'
The UK’s 2013 Consumer Contracts Regulations introduced a 14 day no-fault ‘cooling-off’ period for online purchases. The regulations mean the majority of items purchased online can be returned to the seller without giving a reason, providing the seller is notified within 14 days and the buyer returns the item within another 14 days.
Thanks to these regulations, Brits have the right to cancel their order and get a refund on the majority of purchases - even if they just changed their mind. However, the home delivery expert Parcelhero says the cooling-off period regulations may be costing too much, both to the environment and to smaller and specialist e-commerce traders.
Parcelhero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘It may be time to cool off on the UK’s online “cooling-off” period regulations, before they do more damage to the environment and small businesses. Our current legislation was introduced back in 2013, when only 10.5% of all goods sold in the UK were purchased online. Last month, nearly 30% (28.3%) of all retail sales were online. That means the impact of e-commerce returns has increased exponentially.
‘That’s grim news for the environment. Every return generates up to 4.2kg of CO2. In 2023, the statistics experts Statista calculated returns for the UK’s fashion industry alone generated 1.1m tonnes of CO2 annually, in terms of the direct impact of returns (750,000 tonnes of CO2) and reverse logistics operations (350,000 tonnes of CO2).
‘Many fashion items cannot be resold and 50% of these ended up in landfill. That’s just the tip of the (fast-melting) iceberg when it comes to the cost to the environment. In 2022 alone, global emissions linked to returns reached 24m tonnes of CO2. Four years on, that number will have grown significantly.
‘Compelling though these figures are, they are not the only reason why we should freeze our cooling-off period legislation. The impact of returns on many of Britain’s favourite niche and specialist online retailers is both substantial and disproportionate.
‘The reverse logistics specialists Clear Returns estimate that returns cost UK retailers £60bn a year. Concerningly, it is smaller e-commerce sellers who lose disproportionately more of a product's profit when a return occurs, with their total costs often reaching up to 66% of the item's original price. The loss is not just the refund but also includes the costs of processing, labour, inspection and shipping. These costs can add up quickly, particularly for small businesses that don’t have plenty of staff to process returns. Additionally, of course, products such as seasonal fashion items can lose value if they are not resold promptly.
‘The final nail in the coffin for small online retailers may be that 8% of shoppers admit to returning items several times a month, whether to large businesses such as ASOS or niche craft stores. According to Whistl, almost two-thirds (65%) of UK online shoppers expect returns to be free under any circumstance. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that when Parcelhero spoke to 1,000 SME online sellers for its influential report “Retailers Reach the Point of No Returns”, many told us that too many returns could spell the end for a small business.
‘The crunch figure is that 1-in-3 online purchases are being returned, compared to just 9% of in-store purchases, says CBRE. That’s not surprising, as in the UK there is no cooling-off period for store purchases. Shoppers DON'T have the legal right to change their minds and return items, even if they bought the wrong size or colour. To be returned, the items must either be faulty, not of satisfactory quality, not as described, unfit for purpose or fail to last a reasonable amount of time. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods can only be returned if they meet one or more of these conditions.
‘With the huge impact of returns on both the environment and Britain's favourite niche and specialist online sellers, Parcelhero is asking if it may be time to align our cooling-off period legislation with the more stringent terms of the Consumer Rights Act. Our 2013 Consumer Contracts Regulations were born at a time when we all bought less online and routinely returned far less items.
‘Of course, faulty items must be returnable, at no cost to the buyer, whether purchased online or in-store. However, the growth of new consumer habits such as “wardrobing” – buying an item in different sizes to see which one fits and then returning the ones that don’t – have created staggering volumes of returns that could not have been envisaged 13 years ago. Additionally, our Consumer Contracts Regulations were explicitly introduced to align the UK’s e-commerce legislation with the EU’s Consumer Rights Directive. As we are no longer part of the EU post-Brexit, this is no longer an imperative.
‘For anyone not yet convinced, discover the full impact of returns on retailers large and small in Parcelhero’s report “Retailers Reach the Point of No Returns” at: https://www.parcelhero.com/content/downloads/pdfs/returns/returnwhitepaper.pdf