Returning an Unwanted Gift? It Might be a Little Easier This Year!
January 6th, 2011 | News,Online & Small Business Resources,shopping,Small Business,Small Business Tips | No Comments »
Now that we are 10 shopping days past Christmas I hope you have already returned all of the gifts that you didn’t want. I was just reading this article in the Wall Street Journal about how most larger retailers are now starting to ease their return policies this holiday season.
The article makes special note about how Best Buy has stopped charging their 15% restocking fee for certain items. I think this is an interesting point because it shows how ridiculous some retailers return policies have been for the past few years. The fact that Best Buy has actually been charging people so that they are happy with their shopping experience shows how far the pendulum has swung in the favor of the merchant in recent years when it comes to returns. Hopefully in a few years there will be no such thing as restocking fees and other return policies that retailers have in place will be eased considerably.
I actually have a recent first hand experience of trying to return a large ticket item that was purchased as a gift from Amazon which is one of the largest online retailers in the world. Since the gift I was trying to return or even exchange (I was willing to do either) was purchased longer than 30 days previous to the day I was returning it within days after Christmas I was told that my only option was to return it, pay for return shipping, and only get reimbursed for 85% of the value of the item. 30 minutes on the phone with customer service later and Amazon was paying for the return shipping and I was getting a gift card for 100% of the value of the item but I had to put up a considerable fight and jump through a few hoops to make this happen! Ridiculous!
Anyway, I think there are a lot of really non-consumer friendly return policies out there that are hopefully about to reversed over the course of the next few years. Does anyone out there have another unbelievable return policy that they experienced first hand to share?
