High street retailer Next has informed customers that the charge to return items through couriers will increase from June 21. The increase comes after bosses of the retailer warned customers to expect an increase in prices in the second half of 2022.
Next have always charged customers £2 if they choose to return parcels with a courier including EvRi and Royal Mail. They have also always given customers the option to return parcels to store for free if they wish to return them.
Now from next week on Tuesday, June 21 customers will have to pay £2.50 if they wish to use a courier to return their parcel. They have however ensured that it will remain free to return your parcel to the store.
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Informing customers of the increase Next said: "Our returns charge is increasing from £2.00 to £2.50 for all orders placed after 21/06/22. The charge applies to returns via an EvRi Courier, EvRi ParcelShops, EvRi Returns Lockers and through Royal Mail.
"It's still FREE to return items to a Next store. See our T&C's for more details." The charge applies per collection therefore if you have more than one item to return you are better off doing it all in one go.
The latest increase comes after back in March bosses warned that prices for their homeware and fashion items will increase later in the year. They are expecting an average rise of around 8% in the second half of 2022.
Back in January the retailer said they expected prices to rise 6% however in the space of a few weeks that expectation had risen due to inflation. Lord Simon Wolfson is the chief executive at Next and he told the PA news agency that due to the cost of living crisis getting worse trading could be "subdued" for the remainder of the year.
He said: "Over the past 20 years, we've seen that what really matters is what's in people's bank accounts rather than costs. In January, when we laid down our outlook, people suggested it could be pessimistic but we thought confidence could be subdued."
The price hikes come despite it being reported that the company still expects to make around £850m in profit this year. They also reported pre-tax profits of £823m for the year up until 31 January.
That amount is more than double the amount of the previous year. It is also a whopping 10% above pre-pandemic levels. A spokesperson for Next has said: "NEXT’s returns charge for EVRi courier collections from Home, returns via a Parcel Shop or a Returns Locker is increasing from £2.00 to £2.50 for all orders placed after 21/06/22 – however it’s still FREE for customers to return Online items via a NEXT store.
"NEXT Unlimited customers (an annual subscription service a bit like Amazon Prime) – which makes for free unlimited courier deliveries and returns from home are also unaffected by this change (no increase to the annual subscription rate). So if you aggregate the returns via NEXT stores (for free) and from NEXT Unlimited customers (also for free) – you can see it accounts for the overwhelming majority of returns (for free) from NEXT Online customers.
"The 50p increase is to help recover some of the cost of returning goods, from those customers who chose not to return via a store or are not NEXT Unlimited subscribers."
