Algeria AgencyIndustries
Clothing: the customer is not buying a garment, they are betting on a size
Size is the leading cause of a refused parcel, and the only one fixed with a tape measure rather than with advertising.
In clothing, distance selling asks the customer for something other sectors do not: to pay before knowing whether the item will fit. That is not a purchase, it is a bet, and you set the odds.
Most shops treat that bet as an image problem. The photography is polished, the posts multiply, replies get faster — and the parcel comes back anyway, because the doubt was about a measurement and none of those answers is a measurement.
The good news is that it is the most fixable problem in all of online retail. It needs no budget, no development and no supplier: it needs a tape measure, a table, and the decision to write centimetres next to a letter.
So this article starts with size, goes on to colour and material — the other two gaps between the picture and the parcel — and ends with stock, which in this trade has two expiry dates rather than one.
The customer is not buying a garment, they are betting on a size
A buyer in a shop tries things on. They decide in thirty seconds, and if they are wrong they put the item back on the rail. The same buyer online has to decide without trying, pay, wait, and find out in front of a waiting courier.
That imbalance explains nearly everything online customers get blamed for: the hesitation, ordering two sizes, asking the same question three times by message, and refusing at the door. None of those acts is unreasonable from the point of view of the person doing them.
It also explains why advertising fixes nothing here. An advert brings more people to make the same bet under the same conditions: it multiplies orders and, mechanically, refusals, producing a busy month and a mediocre result.
The only intervention that changes the odds is reducing the uncertainty before payment. Everything below is a variation on that sentence, and none of it costs money.
One counter-intuitive consequence worth keeping: a shop that writes more information often takes fewer orders and banks more, because the orders it loses are the ones that were going to come back.
A size is not information, it is a measurement
A letter — S, M, L — is not a size. It is a manufacturer’s convention, and your items do not all come from the same manufacturer. Two mediums off the same rail can differ by several centimetres, and the customer knows it, which is exactly why they hesitate.
The fix is mechanical: publish the garment’s measurements, not the body’s. Length, chest width laid flat, shoulder width, sleeve length, waist. Five numbers, taken on the item, item by item.
The difference between measuring the garment and giving a body conversion table is the difference between a fact and a guess. The customer knows a garment that already fits them: give them something to compare with and they no longer need to trust you.
The work is long the first time and short afterwards. Allow a few minutes per reference, once, and know that these are the only minutes in the whole trade that remove a refusal with certainty.
Two details separate a useful table from a decorative one: always say whether the measurement is flat or circumference, and state the batch’s real tolerance. A customer told "to within a centimetre" does not refuse over a centimetre.
Colour, material, and the gap with the picture
After size, the two causes of refusal are colour and material. They share an origin: the photograph was taken under conditions that occur nowhere in the customer’s home.
Light is the first factor. A garment photographed under warm lighting goes yellow, under fluorescent it goes green, and against a coloured background it takes the background’s cast. None of those shifts is visible to the person taking the picture, because their eye corrects and the camera does not.
The fix needs no studio: one light source, a neutral background, and always the same conditions. Consistency beats quality — a coherent catalogue teaches the customer to read your images, a mixed one does not.
Material cannot be photographed from a distance. It is shown by a close-up and said in words: composition, thickness, stretch, transparency, behaviour in the wash. One sentence per item is enough, and it is the sentence people re-read before ordering.
An honest practice that pays more than it costs: write down what might disappoint. "Narrow cut", "thin fabric", "lighter in reality". A warned customer who orders anyway will not refuse, and that is precisely the effect wanted.
Your stock has two expiry dates
A garment does not spoil. But it stops being sellable at the intended price long before it stops being wearable, and that second expiry is the trade’s real financial constraint.
The consequence is that an unsold item costs more than its shelf space: it costs the difference between the price it should have gone at and the price it will go at. That difference grows every week, silently, and appears nowhere before the sales.
Hence a rule few shops apply: discounts are decided on a calendar, not on a mood. Deciding in advance that an item drops a step after so many weeks turns a loss suffered into a mechanism.
The late discount is the most expensive and the most common. You wait until cash is short, mark everything down at once, and teach the customer that your prices always fall in the end — which shifts every future order they make.
The mirror rule is worth stating: do not discount what is selling. A markdown applied to a reference going at full price is margin given away for nothing, and it is nearly always decided alongside the necessary markdown, in the same announcement.
What to measure: refusals by size and by reference
One line in a notebook is enough, and it changes how you buy: for each return, note the reference, the size ordered and the reason in one word. Too small, too big, colour, material, changed mind.
Four weeks of that notebook produce a table telling you what no agency can guess: which references run differently from the rest of your stock, and therefore which need a measurement table of their own.
The second number is the share of refusals by size. If every size comes back equally, your problem is the description; if one specific size comes back more, your problem is a batch, and it is solved by correcting a page rather than a strategy.
The third is the exchange rate against the refund rate. A customer who exchanges stays a customer; a refunded one is a lost customer and a cancelled sale. The ratio measures the quality of your policy far better than the number of returns.
What the notebook will not say: how many people did not order because they were unsure of the size. That is the most important number in the trade and it is not measurable. We will not substitute an estimate for it.
Giving back the fitting room
Trying on is what a shop provides and distance selling removes. Giving it back, even partly, is the most powerful lever in the trade and it needs no technology.
The simplest form is sending two sizes with a return agreed in advance. It costs one extra journey and removes an entire category of refusals, and the arithmetic is nearly always favourable once unit margin exceeds the cost of a return.
The second is a pickup point where things can be tried on. If you have a physical shop, reserving online and trying in store is the best of both channels and the least offered of any.
The third is conversational and free: ask the customer for the measurements of a garment they own that fits. It is a precise question, answered in a minute, and it settles most hesitation.
The fourth is a written commitment on exchanges. One sentence — "if the size is wrong, we exchange it" — placed beside the price does more for conversion than any additional photograph, because it reduces exactly the risk the customer is weighing up.
Where you are seen, and what people look at
Clothing is the sector whose shop window is almost entirely social. According to the data published by DataReportal for Algeria, the country counted 27.5 million social media identities in October 2025.
The split matters more than the total: Facebook remains the most used platform with 25.6 million users, followed by TikTok at 21.1 million — growing fast — and Instagram at 12 million.
For a shop that does not mean posting everywhere. It means choosing according to who buys from you: an older clientele is massively on the first, a young one spends its time elsewhere, and posting the same thing in both places works well in neither.
What people look at is narrower than you would imagine too: the garment worn, the price, availability in their size, and the delay. A post carrying none of those four is a decorative post.
The most useful consequence is dull: write the price. A shop that answers "by private message" multiplies conversations, slows its replies, loses the people who do not ask — and trains its audience to believe the price depends on who is asking.
DataReportal, Digital 2026 Algeria — October 2025 figures
Exchange rather than refund
A returns policy comes down to four decisions, and they have to be taken before they are forced: the window, the condition required, who pays return carriage, and the form of compensation.
On the last, the answer serving both sides is the exchange. It keeps the sale, it keeps the relationship, and it turns dissatisfaction into a second order whose acquisition cost nothing.
It has to be made easy, though, or it does not happen. An exchange requiring a return, a wait for inspection, then a fresh order is a refund in disguise with three chances to give up.
One case to handle honestly: the items you will not take back — underwear, personalised pieces, sale stock. Write them down by name, next to the price, rather than in terms nobody reads.
And one thing not to do: promising free returns without having worked out what the promise costs against your average unit margin. A generous promise honoured reluctantly produces worse reviews than a modest one honoured without argument.
Brand, copies and trust
Clothing is the sector where copying comes up most directly, in both directions: what you sell, and what others sell under your name.
On the first, we will not tell you what to sell. We will tell you what communication cannot do: describing an item as though it were a brand it is not is a risk you carry entirely, and no careful wording reduces it.
On the second, a shop name that gains value attracts accounts reusing your photographs, your name and sometimes your prices. It is common, it costs sales, and it is not settled by indignant messages.
The first protection is administrative rather than editorial: a registered name can be defended, a merely used one defends badly. We have written a whole article on the subject and that is where to start, before publishing more.
The second is practical: an address, a landline or a real place, photographs that are yours and recognisable, a history of posts. A copycat account can take your images; it cannot take three years of trail.
Price, payment, and who holds a card
Writing the price is the most profitable commercial decision in this sector, and the one that meets the most resistance. The argument against — "it drives people away" — actually describes a fear of comparison, which happens anyway.
A written price does three things: it removes half the messages, it stops anyone believing the rate depends on who is asking, and it qualifies the orders you receive. An order placed by somebody who knew the price will not be refused over the amount.
On payment, a dated fact beats an impression: the Algerian base counts 21,899,581 cards in circulation, split between 17,655,039 Edahabia cards and 4,244,542 CIB cards.
The consequence for a shop is direct: four cards in five are Edahabia. A checkout accepting only the other would address fewer than one holder in five, and a checkout tested with only one goes live with half its cases never run.
That does not mean removing cash on delivery, which remains what most people know. It means offering both and making prepayment slightly better value, so the customer chooses to take the risk away from the door themselves.
- Edahabia (Algérie Poste)17 655 039cards
- CIB (banks)4 244 542cards
GIE Monétique, 2025 annual balance sheet
What to check before signing with a supplier
The first question sorts everybody: ask how they intend to reduce your returns. If the answer is about traffic, design or advertising, they are selling attraction while your loss is in sizing.
The second is about product pages: will they enter measurements item by item, and at what price? It is the most useful and least glamorous work in the trade, and many suppliers decline it without saying so.
The third is about photographs: who takes them, under what lighting conditions, and are they yours at the end of the contract? A catalogue shot by somebody who keeps the rights is a catalogue you cannot take with you.
The fourth is about ownership of the rest: domain name, hosting, accounts, and whether you can export your catalogue and your orders into a readable file without them.
The fifth is a simple test: ask what they would refuse to write. A supplier willing to describe an item as though it were another brand exposes you to a risk they will not be carrying.
What we do, and what we will refuse to do
What we will refuse: describing an item as though it were a brand it is not, whatever wording is proposed. It is a risk that stays with you and we will not manufacture it.
We will also refuse to sell you a rebuild while your product pages carry no measurements. That would be billing a prettier site for the same refusal rate, and we would rather say so beforehand than explain it afterwards.
A limit of competence, stated plainly: we are neither stylists nor buyers. We will not tell you what to buy or which cut works this season, and we would be wary of an agency that did.
What we do: pages carrying measurements and a tolerance, a catalogue photographed under constant conditions, the price written next to the item, an exchange policy in four lines, and a checkout tested with both of the market’s cards.
And what you should do without us this week: take your ten best-selling references, measure them flat, and write the numbers under each photograph. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and it will remove more returns than anything we could bill you for this quarter.
Frequently asked questions
Should we publish a size chart?
Publish the garment’s measurements rather than a body conversion table. The customer knows a garment that fits them: give them something to compare with and they no longer need to trust you.
Our photographs are good and parcels still come back. Why?
Because a good photograph does not answer the question being asked, which is a measurement. Check the light too: under warm lighting a colour shifts, and the photographer’s eye corrects where the camera does not.
Should we write the price or answer by private message?
Write it. It removes half the messages, stops anyone believing the rate depends on who is asking, and qualifies your orders — an order placed knowing the price is not refused over the amount.
Exchange or refund?
Exchange wherever possible, and made easy. It keeps the sale and the relationship. An exchange requiring a return, a wait and then a fresh order is a refund in disguise.
When should we discount?
On a calendar decided in advance, step by step, and never on what is selling at full price. A late, blanket markdown teaches the customer that your prices always fall in the end.
An account is reusing our photographs and our name. What can we do?
Start with the administrative side: a registered name can be defended, a merely used one defends badly. Then make yourself recognisable otherwise — address, real place, history — because a copycat can take your images but not three years of trail.
Where we come in
Ten references measured flat and four weeks of returns logged in a single word tell you whether your problem is sizing, photography or description.
- We put measurements and a tolerance on every record, never a size alone.
- We photograph the catalogue under identical conditions from item to item.
- We write descriptions from the return reasons, not from the supplier’s catalogue.
While your records carry no measurements we will not sell you a rebuild: it would move the problem without touching it.
Read next
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Every demonstration shows the shop. All the cost and all the risk sit behind it, in the part nobody draws.Running an online shop: the day, the parcel, the return
A shop is chosen once and run every day. The second job is the one that decides whether the first was worth doing.
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