Protective Gear Return Rates Improve in 2009

Each year, I look at each item's return rate. We want to weed out any products that have a return rate that stands out as that indicates less satisfaction with a product, to educate on particular sizes that have issues and praise those products that have the lowest so you feel more confident in buying them should you not be sure.

Overall, return rates by category were very good. An interesting stat that may or may not surprise you: for every 33 main protective gear items sold, only 1 is returned. I would say those numbers rival bricks-and-mortar stores.

For 2009, here are the highlights:

• Umpire shin guards return rates dropped from 7% (2008) to 4.7%, a very nice improvement.
  I attribute this to educating customers to size up when in doubt and showing return rates on multiple sizes on each product page where there is a difference.
  
  
• Umpire masks return rates dropped from 2.3% to 1.8%, excellent.
  
  
• Umpire chest protectors return rates were up slightly from 3% to 3.4%.
  
  
• Overall, smaller sizes continue to be returned at a larger rate than bigger sizes although that gap is thankfully getting smaller.
  For instance, in 2008, the return rate on the smaller 10.75" Wilson Platinum chest protector was a high 20%. For '09, the return rate was a much lower 7.5% after we talked about it here and on its product page.

So which items have the lowest return rates per category?

• Masks: Diamond Featherweight with Silver Frame
  Less than 1%
  
  
• Chest Protectors: Diamond iX3
  1.4%
  
  
• Shin Guards: Wilson A3417 Charcoal
  3%

We will be updating each product's page soon with these new percentages as well as continuing to share popularity numbers in relation to their respective categories.

Hopefully, all this inside information that you won't find elsewhere will continue to help you make the best choices when deciding on which umpire gear is right for you.