82% cite free returns: a 15-second return-policy clip with cues

NRF's 2025 returns report says 82% of shoppers cite free returns as a major purchase consideration, and 37% of retailers plan to manage holiday returns by extending return windows. If your policy is a strength, a 15-second clip with the window length and the steps on screen puts it where shoppers decide. A trim and a caption job cost $0.22 on Sume.

What NRF reports about returns policy

The release links policy to behavior: 71% of shoppers say they are less likely to return to a retailer after a poor returns experience, and 76% prefer an instant refund or exchange. It also lists why retailers charge for returns.

Show the steps, not the legal text

A returns policy page is dense. A clip should carry four facts: the window in days, who pays shipping, how the refund arrives and where to start. Use real numbers from your policy and keep each to one caption card.

Film the steps: a box being opened, a label being printed, a drop-off counter. About 25 seconds, silent, in one take.

Cut and caption

Cut 15 seconds with video trim and burn four cards with video captions using cues. If your window is extended for the holidays, write the end date, such as "Returns accepted until January 31," instead of a day count, so the card is right whenever it is read.

Cues carry text, start and end times and skip speech-to-text, so the policy wording appears as you wrote it.

Match the page

The clip and the policy page must say the same thing. If they differ, shoppers will rely on the clip, and you will honor it or argue about it. Keep the policy text in one file and generate both the page and the cues from it.

NRF's figures describe retailers in aggregate. Treat them as context for why a clear policy matters, not as a promise that a clip will change behavior.

Before you publish

Sume tools read media from your workspace, so import the recording first with POST /v1/media-imports and use the returned media.sume.com URL as the trim source. A trim needs start plus exactly one of end or duration, and precision defaults to exact, which lands on the frame you wrote down.

Captions with cues take your text with start and end seconds and skip speech-to-text, so a clip with no speech never hits caption_no_speech. A caption job covers a video up to 60 seconds, which is why each clip here stays well under that.

Write each card as one short sentence and date it, then re-check the source page before each season, since deadlines, rules and figures change. If you need the same words on a second clip or a different layout, pass source_caption_id to restyle an earlier caption job rather than paying for another speech-to-text pass; for authored cues, a second job at $0.20 is the simple route.