46% of AI-guided shoppers send the recommendation back

Nearly half of Americans who buy on an AI recommendation — 46% — have returned the item within the past year. That figure comes from Blue Yonder's fourth annual Consumer Retail Returns Survey, which polled more than 5,000 consumers across the U.S., Australia, France, Germany and the U.K., including 2,000 Americans.

The funnel matters as much as the headline number. Only 24% of U.S. consumers have actually purchased a product after an AI chatbot or assistant recommended it. But of those who did, nearly half shipped it back. The top reason, cited by 36%, was that the product was different than described; another 23% blamed incorrect size or fit.

Flip those two reasons and you get the picture for U.S. returns overall. Across all purchases, bad fit leads at 42%, and "different than described" trails at 20%. The reversal suggests AI tools actually struggle less with sizing than with describing products accurately.

What does this change for shippers?

Plenty, if reverse logistics volumes climb. Duncan Angove, CEO of the Dallas-based supply chain software firm, put it bluntly: "Shoppers are taking AI's advice faster than retailers are getting ready for it, and nearly half of them are sending something back."

His diagnosis is pointed. "That's not really an AI problem. It's a data problem," Angove said. "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."

For carriers and 3PLs, that translates into more parcel traffic flowing backward through the network — and for retailers, more cost per sale.

Tightening policies carries a price

The survey also found shoppers remain acutely sensitive to returns rules. Just over half of U.S. respondents (51%) said they chose one retailer over another purely on the strength of its returns policy. Nearly a third (29%) stopped shopping at a retailer that tightened its policy in the past year.

The generational split is stark. Gen Z (47%) and Millennials (40%) were the likeliest to walk after stricter rules, versus 24% of Gen X and just 17% of Baby Boomers.

Retailers are responding with tracking tech of their own, including AI that monitors return histories and flags frequent returners. Shoppers are split on that: 30% called it a fair way to control costs, 25% said it wouldn't affect their shopping, but 24% deemed it invasive and said they'd shop elsewhere.

"The instinct when returns go up is to tighten the rules," Angove said. "But the data tells you how that ends. Flag shoppers as frequent returners and limit their returns, and eight in 10 say they'd cut back or walk away." He added that some of the most frequent returners are a retailer's best customers — the trick is distinguishing abuse from loyalty, which takes systems that set the right policy per customer and process every return quickly and cheaply.

Keep-it refunds go mainstream

More than half of U.S. respondents (55%) were told by a retailer in the past year to simply keep a product they wanted to return — unchanged from 2025. Among them, 67% said the gesture made them more likely to shop with that retailer again.

The math favors it, too. When shipping and processing a return costs more than the item would resell for, a keep-it refund is the cheaper outcome — provided retailers can spot who'd exploit it.

Shoppers will also accept alternatives to a straight refund:

• Store credit for a future purchase — 51%
• A discount or partial refund — 31%
• A discount on a future purchase — 28%
• Nothing at all — just 21%

"Done right, returns stop being just a cost and instead start earning loyalty," Angove said. As AI-assisted buying grows from its current 24% adoption base, retailers that fix their product data before their policies will be the ones keeping the box closed.