I'll toss in a counter-anecdote in that I am an enthusiastic returner.
Was it misrepresented? Return it - penalize misleading practices.
Was it junk? Return it - penalize hiding that something is junk. (is it priced like junk and not shy about it? great! you know what you're getting! junk can be useful!)
Was it just a bad fit for you and nothing is wrong with it and it might work for someone else[1]? Return it - encourage more thorough descriptions. E.g. "one size fits all" is an extremely lazy lie that just cost you money, measure it and tell me the measurements - they are perfectly capable of that and almost certainly did it multiple times already while creating the thing. (though for some I do feel bad about the cost it imposes, and don't always return here. depends on the details.)
It's not a 100% "I just don't want it" thing, there's plenty of regret-purchases that I just hang onto and give to someone else or sell at a rummage sale. But I definitely don't feel bad about using returns as a "stop being hostile towards your customers" tool.
It's also roughly the only way consumers as a whole can provide feedback to a seller that won't be ignored. Communicate your opinion clearly.
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[1]: Headphones are a pretty good example here. They like to claim sky-high perfection and durability and features, and then ship buggy crap with no support or wildly misrepresent sound quality (e.g. frequency response is quantitatively measurable so measure it, leaving it up to niche reviewers is worse for everyone). Lots of luxury-adjacent products do stuff like this, and I do not feel the least bit bad about calling them out on it - this stuff gets measured during development, used to select materials and tune the final product, and then hidden from you to sell it. And then they often change it after the initial launch, and do not tell anyone. It's blatant hostility, and it deserves to be treated as such.
Was it misrepresented? Return it - penalize misleading practices.
Was it junk? Return it - penalize hiding that something is junk. (is it priced like junk and not shy about it? great! you know what you're getting! junk can be useful!)
Was it just a bad fit for you and nothing is wrong with it and it might work for someone else[1]? Return it - encourage more thorough descriptions. E.g. "one size fits all" is an extremely lazy lie that just cost you money, measure it and tell me the measurements - they are perfectly capable of that and almost certainly did it multiple times already while creating the thing. (though for some I do feel bad about the cost it imposes, and don't always return here. depends on the details.)
It's not a 100% "I just don't want it" thing, there's plenty of regret-purchases that I just hang onto and give to someone else or sell at a rummage sale. But I definitely don't feel bad about using returns as a "stop being hostile towards your customers" tool.
It's also roughly the only way consumers as a whole can provide feedback to a seller that won't be ignored. Communicate your opinion clearly.
---
[1]: Headphones are a pretty good example here. They like to claim sky-high perfection and durability and features, and then ship buggy crap with no support or wildly misrepresent sound quality (e.g. frequency response is quantitatively measurable so measure it, leaving it up to niche reviewers is worse for everyone). Lots of luxury-adjacent products do stuff like this, and I do not feel the least bit bad about calling them out on it - this stuff gets measured during development, used to select materials and tune the final product, and then hidden from you to sell it. And then they often change it after the initial launch, and do not tell anyone. It's blatant hostility, and it deserves to be treated as such.