Luxury items are displayed on a local online shopping platform / Korea Times file

By Kim Jae-heun

Consumer complaints are growing over luxury shopping platforms' poor return policies, as most of them charge fees to return items and some even refuse to allow returns, according to industry watchers, Sunday.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency, 655 complaints were reported about luxury fashion firms last year, up 101.5 percent year-on-year. In 2019, 171 cases were reported, followed by 352 cases in 2020.

As for the types of complaints, the most common were related to the poor quality of the luxury goods, at 33 percent. Twenty-eight percent of consumers were dissatisfied with firms refusing to allow returns, followed by 10.8 percent who complained about return fees and 6.1 percent about late deliveries.

"I purchased a 280,000-won ($214.40) T-shirt from Balaan recently, but I didn't like it so I decided I wanted a refund. But they asked me to pay 80,000 won in return fees. It makes me think that the company was trying to discourage me from returning the item," a 32-year-old surnamed Kang said.

Another consumer surnamed Lee said he had bought a pair of shoes from Italy on local luxury shopping platform Tren:be last month, and it took nearly a month for his order to arrive.

"It said my shoes would arrive in a week on the website, but it took over three weeks for me to receive them. The shoe size was also too big for me, but I just decided to wear them as it would take another month to get a refund. I don't think I will purchase any more luxury goods online from now on," Lee said.

Local luxury shopping platforms say on their website that consumers will have to deal with return fees if they are returning products for minor defects such as small scratches, wrinkles or dents

"Our platform is an open market system, where we connect our customers to local stores in Europe with the cheapest prices. There is the round-trip overseas shipping fee that our consumers have to pay if they return an item due to simply changing their minds. This is what makes returns expensive for overseas purchases and we cannot support that," a Tren:be official said.