Now that Christmas presents have been opened and guests have gone home, a new season is upon us: gift return season. However, bringing back unwanted presents for cash isn’t going to be as easy this year.
High Tech Texan Michael Garfield, also known as the High Tech Texan, recently joined Audacy to gives some tips on how to navigate the complicated return landscape.
“Times are changing,” he told KRLD’s Ask the Expert. “I mean I can remember, let’s go back to the 1980s and 1990s – very easy to return policy when you walk into stores,” he added.
In a report released this October, the National Retail Federation said that 72% of merchants surveyed had started charging for at least one return option. That was up from 66% the previous year. It’s also decreased return rates by more than half, according to the merchants surveyed.
According to Tom Joyner’s Fantastic Voyage, fees can range from just under $4 at stores like H&M and Zara to $45 at Best Buy, depending on the location of purchase and state of packaging. Garfield’s first suggestion for avoiding return fees is to become acquainted with store policies.
“Before you start to repackage these things up and walk back into the store or mail them back, you need to look at the individual store policy and a lot of them, they have deadlines,” he explained. “You really need to understand the Christmas or the holiday return deadlines. For example, you look at Best Buy, that’s mid-January. Amazon, Walmart, they’re going to give you to the end of January.”
Since Garfield mentioned Amazon, we should also address the difficulties of returning items purchased online. He has tips for that too, including keeping packaging in the best shape possible in case you need to return something.
“Open with caution always,” Garfield said. “Before you decide like: ‘Hey, this really fits me. This is what I want.’”
Sometimes packaging even comes with gift receipts and return labels. Keeping it also makes it easy to pack things up and bring them to the post office. Garfield also warned that pulling off tags and some types of packaging can reduce the likelihood of a successful return.
If you can, Garfield recommends skipping the shipping process altogether.
“We’ve got two big online retailers – Amazon, for example, Walmart Plus – if you have that membership, they honestly are making it very, very simple to return.”
Members are able to bring their online purchases in to a brick-and-mortar store to return or pick up, Garfield explained. For Amazon customers, that’s often a Whole Foods store (the grocery chain is owned by Amazon).
Once in the line for returns, people often have a question to face: cash or store credit? While Garfield noted that cash is usually preferable, he said consumers shouldn’t be too upset if they’re only offered store credit.
“I’m fine with that because, you know, listen, I’m more than happy to have more credit on my Amazon account or my Walmart Plus account or one of my favorite retailers because I can go buy something,” he said. Garfield added that “store credit generally does not expire or it's going to give you a good expiration date maybe for the next year.”