Considering a great opportunity in the shoes / boots niche

I found a really good opportunity in the shoe niche and I think it has a lot of potential.

However, it requires some upfront investment and I'm kinda turned off by the high return rate in that niche.

I'm currently running a store in the health niche and our return / refund rate is less than 1%. But average order value is $35 so people do not have that much of an incentive even in the case they're not 100% satisfied.

I've read that some ecom shoe stores even have a 50% return rate! That's bonkers.

Maybe they have a lot of capital and can take a hit but eventually still be profitable. But for a small business like mine it seems a big risk. Moreover, if people are generally used to exchanging and returning shoes often and expect things like free-returns this could make it even more tricky.

Do you think it's worth it?

Do you run a store with shoes or with other high return rate merchandise like clothes? How do you cope with it?