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The Gift That Keeps on…Charging You

I don’t have any facts to support this, but the next few days, retailers probably process more returns than any other time during the year. With more and more people shopping online, this equates to loads of additional work and costs from order processing to restocking and steadily rising shipping fees. And now, some of those retailers are passing that cost on to you.

Welcome to what many are calling Returnuary, the post-holiday season where unwanted gifts flood back to stores and retailers are feeling every minute of it. According to CBS News, the National Retail Federation estimates that nearly one in five online purchases will be returned this year, making holiday returns a multibillion-dollar headache for shops and shoppers alike.

What’s new this year is something many of us didn’t expect: fees for returning stuff, especially when you rely on mail-in returns. Big names like Macy’s now charge around ten dollars for mail-in returns unless you’re part of their rewards program. T.J. Maxx and Marshalls tack on about twelve dollars, and places like J.Crew, H&M, and Zara all have smaller fees too. Best Buy goes even further, charging up to forty-five dollars to return certain electronics or tech items by mail. Personally, I’m not a fan of their return policy at all after learning I couldn’t even return a device in-person without having some type of paid membership.🤷‍♂️

Most of the time, you can avoid these charges by returning items in person, but that’s not always convenient when all you wanted was free holiday shipping in the first place. And yes, there are still plenty of retailers like Walmart, Target, and Amazon that offer free returns via certain methods, but the shifting policies mean it pays to read the fine print before you click “buy.”

Is this something shoppers should be expected to pay, or is this a retailer's problem? In this world of consumerism, it seems like there’s a fee attached to everything. But when shoppers decide to speak with their wallets, changes happen.

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