While it may not be a viral hit of Gangnam Style proportions, a utilitarian two-and-a-half minute video on eBags.com is a bona fide hit for the web-only retailer of handbags, luggage and accessories. The video, which appears on the web page outlining eBags’ returns policy, stars the e-retailer’s customer care manager Zack Jalbert explaining to viewers how to return an unwanted item.

EBags.com added the video, which essentially puts the instructions that appear in text on the same page into spoken form with a few add graphics and tips, during the summer of 2012. It has been played 23,932 times as of late October, says Peter Cobb, eBags co-founder and senior vice president of marketing, and 57% of consumers who’ve pressed Play watched the entire video. That’s well short of the hundreds of millions of YouTube views for the Gangnam Style videos of South Korean pop artist Psy, but not bad for a how-to video on returning a product.

Cobb says those metrics are surprising in and of themselves, but the real news has been the way the video has helped convert shoppers into buyers. To date, eBags has recorded $381,914 in revenue from consumers who watched the video and then went on to complete their transactions.

Cobb says that was thoroughly unexpected. “We put it up there more to clear things up in this age of YouTube, to serve customers who prefer to watch a video rather than read the same information,” he says, adding that the idea for the video came from the customer service team. “It’s incredible how many people click on the video and then end up purchasing. It is a hidden revenue generator that we just stumbled upon.”

EBags is No. 149 in Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide. For more on how eBags and other retailers manage returns, check out the November issue of Internet Retailer magazine.