If you’re thinking of sending back a disappointing gift you just received over the holidays, the return may bring even more disappointment.
Americans have grown accustomed to free returns, but a growing number of retailers are charging fees as returns squeeze retailers’ bottom lines.
Macy’s, Abercrombie, J. Crew, H&M and other companies have all added shipping fees for mail-in returns.
And it’s not just the big mall brands, either. Eighty-one precent of merchants are now charging a fee for at least some methods of returns, according to Happy Returns, a logistics company that specializes in returns.
Honestly I don’t blame them. If they try to resell the item it’s probably going to be a 25-50% discount for being an open package.
They just mark it as new and sell it at full price. Had this happen with Amazon several times.
Eh, maybe with online services. I worked at a brick-and-mortar big-box store for awhile and almost everything that was returned that wasn’t for extreme damage or being non-functional was put on a shelf with a large discount because we didn’t have the space to store it and wanted it gone quickly since it what a shame to throw it away when someone could probably use it.