Amazon Has Streamlined Returns for Customers (and for Amazon)

As the holiday shopping season recedes into the recent past, gift return season ramps up. If you bought or received something from Amazon over the holidays, the return window is generally open until January 31, and Amazon has streamlined the unbuying process. For the majority of Amazon returners, Amazon has eliminated the need to repackage the purchase in a shipping carton. The customer does generally need to bring their return to a shipping or return receiving location. 

Every year around Christmas and perhaps more in recent years, there is great discussion of the return challenges that online retailers face. Of course, they inherited this challenge from their catalog retail ancestors. Despite this, only about one-third of Amazon shoppers report returning an Amazon purchase in the prior six months and 40% of Amazon shoppers say they never have returned an Amazon purchase (Chart 1).