If you are thinking about returning a gift you just received for Christmas, be prepared to lose money.
The Americans have gotten used to free returns, but a growing number of retailers are charging fees to accept products back. Macy’s, Abercrombie, J. Crew, H&M among other companies have added shipping fees for returns by mail.
And it’s not just the big brands. About 80% of merchants now charge some fee depending on the return method, according to Happy Returns, a logistics company specialized in returns.
Amazon has started charging customers a $1 fee if they return items via UPS when there is a Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, or Kohl’s near their delivery address. (Amazon owns Whole Foods and Fresh and has a partnership agreement with Kohl’s.) Amazon has also recently begun to flag “frequently returned” products on its website.
Return fees have skyrocketed in recent years as shoppers buy more online. After all, shoppers are more likely to return purchases they haven’t seen or tried on in person, experts say.
Customers returned nearly 17% of the total goods they purchased in 2022, totaling $816 billion, according to data from the National Retail Federation. This is up from 8% in 2019.
Typically, it’s the companies that bear the shipping costs so that customers can return their products. These items sometimes end up in retailers’ warehouses. Then stores have to mark down the prices of returned products to sell them, further reducing their profit.
Returned products can even end up in landfills, posing an environmental threat.
In some cases, stores are allowing customers to keep the products instead of returning them, such as bulky items, low-priced items, or items that are expensive for retailers to cover shipping.
Source: CNN