Sometimes You’re Told To Keep Your Return Item

About 10 percent of items sold at retail gets returned after the holidays, a figure that rises to 18 percent for online sales. Last year returns totaled $428 billion, and this year it’s expected to be higher. Quietly, though, retailers have been working out policies of just telling consumers to keep the stuff they want to return. A return can cost 66 percent of the price of an item, making processing and liquidation annoying and, for lower-margin items, a net loss for the retailer.

… A July survey found 75 percent of customers had been told they can just keep an item they’d been refunded for, with items less than $20 making up 59 percent of the returns.