The holiday gift return rush has started. Here’s what to know before you send back unwanted presents.
Now that the holiday gifts have been unwrapped, it’s time for the rush to make returns.
As Latonya Rascoe was getting the last wave of Christmas gifts ready to ship out of a Fedex office in Anchorage, Alaska, another wave was coming.
“We even work Christmas Day here at the front counter, taking your returns,” said Rascoe.
Starting Friday, the National Retail Federation predicts that nearly $900 billion in goods will be returned.
Holiday returns rush
The NRF expects about 17% of sales to be returned this year, which peak between now and Jan. 2.
Last year, e-commerce purchases were the most likely to be sent back, making the holiday shipping season a lot longer.
“They’re returns on everything they don’t like, everything they don’t want, everything that was too small, too big, we return,” said Rascoe.
At the FedEx shipping hub in Anchorage, they sort up to 80,000 packages per day.
FedEx’s holiday rush goes from the beginning of Thanksgiving until three weeks after Christmas, according to FedEx senior ramp manager Tracy Watkins. She works to keep the nearly three dozen cargo planes that will move 80,000 packages on schedule.
Each cargo plane can carries more than 20,000 packages. From Alaska, a key global gateway, they could travel to FedEx hubs in Oakland, Indianapolis and Memphis, or to Asia and the Pacific.
Return policies
Worldwide, FedEx handled about 16 million deliveries daily leading up to Christmas.
Before sending back unwanted gifts, experts advise to do your homework, since return policies vary.
Nerdwallet’s Kimberly Palmer warns some retailers may even charge funds to ship goods back.
“Keep those in their original packaging,” Palmer said. “You have the receipts and you don’t wait. A lot of people go past the deadline that returns have to be processed.”
