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Washington, DC, December 21, 2007— With only days until
Christmas, holiday shoppers who are lucky enough to have
completed the purchases can relax momentarily before gearing up
for the day after Christmas — when stores are flooded
with consumers lining up for post-holiday sales and returns. To
help ease the burden of returns, the National Consumers League,
the nation’s oldest consumer group, offers advice for increasing
the chances of successful — and painless — holiday gift
returns.
“As surely as people buy holiday gifts, they also return holiday
gifts,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of NCL.
“Returning merchandise successfully — and getting a refund
you’re satisfied with — can pose a few challenges any time of
year, but there are a number of things consumers can do before
the return, or even before the purchase, to reduce stress, ease
the process, and increase the odds of a successful transaction.”
Tips for Easy Holiday Returns:
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Know a store’s return policy before you buy.
When you buy, know what you’re getting into — whether
the return will be in the form of cash or store credit, at
full price, the price that was paid by the purchaser, or
some more recent marked-down price. Know whether having the
receipt factors into this so you can decide whether politely
going back to the gift giver to ask for the receipt is
warranted.
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Keep a paper trail.
Go to the trouble of saving receipts from the beginning and
keeping them handy in case there’s a need for a return.
Having a receipt dramatically increases the chances of an
outcome that’s to your liking.
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Don’t open stuff if you know you don’t want it, particularly
electronics.
Policies that don’t allow returns for opened electronics
items are common. If they do take it back, they may withhold
a certain percentage of the return price and call it a
“restocking fee.”
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Spend your gift cards.
They may lose value over time, so look at the fine print and
spend them before they expire.
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Be prepared to be denied.
Stores have been tracking customers’ return habits for
years, but it wasn’t until recently that consumers started
being made aware of it. Some stores subscribe to services
that keep track of what consumers are purchasing and
bringing back in an attempt to curb consumer return fraud —
the returning of stolen goods. For honest consumers, this
can cause problems, as some stores limit the amount of
return activity to a certain number or value of annual
merchandise returns. There’s a possibility if you’ve
returned a lot of merchandise, you’ll be denied.
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Be smart.
Don’t wear it. Don’t damage it. Increase the chance of
having a successful return by taking care of the item on its
way back to the store and being a pleasant, polite customer.
The post-holidays are stressful enough. Don’t contribute
with a less-likely-to-be-helped attitude.
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Check out the return policy of an online purchase. You may be able to bring it in-person to the
brick-and-mortar store. You may have to pay to send it back,
or the vendor may have provided you with a pre-paid postage
slip. Or you may not be able to return it at all. Read the
delivery information and return instructions for anything
you purchase online, particularly if it’s meant to be a
gift.
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