Retail reflections & protections: Industry insights and how to limit return abuse in 2025

Inside this report

Are you familiar with the terms “wardrobing,” “pricing arbitrage,” “haul culture,” “INR” and “DNA”?

Retailers worldwide sure are, and they’re increasingly investing in efforts to mitigate such tactics.

This analysis provides crucial insights into patterns and trends impacting retailer profitability gathered from:

• first-party transactional data
• dark web communities
• fraud forums on platforms like Reddit & Telegram

The key takeaway? In an increasingly organized and coordinated fraud landscape, retailers need an omnichannel, multi-merchant view of their customers to confidently and consistently prevent fraudulent returns and abusive claims while providing positive experiences for good customers.

Table of contents:

• 01.  Challenges for retail risk leaders
• 02.  The propagation of policy abuse
• 03.  Risky product categories
• 04.  Expand the customer view
• 05.  Collaborative prevention: Riskified & APPRISS