You might love that new tech gadget you purchased, but can you return it?
That's the question more and more people ask when they make a purchase. Increasingly, shoppers use a store's return policies as a major factor in deciding what to buy and where.
We worked with shopping experts to examine the return policies at the Big Three — Walmart, Amazon, and Target — to compare the ease of returns and to determine which has the most favorable policies for shoppers.
We're in uncharted territory when it comes to returns. Never before have shoppers returned more items.
“Because online shopping has grown so rapidly in the past few years, thanks to the pandemic, returns have grown exponentially,” explains Trae Bodge, smart shopping expert at Truetrae.com.
According to an Insider report, American shoppers returned a quarter of what they purchased by dollar value, totaling $280 billion in 2022. There are many reasons for the rise in returns, but one big one is the modern shopping practice known as bracketing when consumers buy multiple items (say, in a range of colors or sizes) with the intention of returning all but one. This is an especially common approach for online shoppers who can’t see, feel, or try on an item until they have it at home.
Shopper returns are now such common practice that retailers must meet that expectation with generous return policies or seriously risk losing the business, even though returns are costly for merchants.
According to Happy Returns, a full half of shoppers will abandon their carts if they discover they can’t conveniently make a return.
Fortunately for shoppers at Walmart, Amazon, and Target, all three of these major online and brick-and-mortar retailers have generous return policies that keep shoppers coming back. But the nuances are what set them apart.
Returns are available for just about everything Walmart sells, typically within 90 days of purchase, with a substantially extended holiday return policy. Its extended return policy for items purchased during the holiday season lasts one full year.
Items shipped from Amazon can be returned within 30 days of delivery. Some exceptions exist such as for health and personal care items. Amazon typically extends its return window to 90 days during the holiday period.
Target accepts returns for a full refund within 90 days for most items. If you pay with a Target RedCard, you can tack on an extra 30 days to the return window. For holiday gift items purchased from October 1 through Christmas, Target’s policy extends the return window to the full 90 days beginning on December 26.
Now, let’s look closer at the strengths of each policy by category.
Beyond its standard 90-day return policy with receipt (or 120 days for cardholders), Target offers a whopping one-year return policy for products from their private label brands. These include Up & Up, Cat & Jack, and A New Day, a policy that makes it “the most generous of the three,” in Bodge’s assessment.
Specifically, this has been a boon for shoppers who have made news recently for widespread returns of kids’ Cat & Jack-branded clothes. Under the permissive policy, they’ve brought back well-worn clothes their kids have simply outgrown or stained, along with the original purchase receipts.
“It is rumored that Target is cracking down, but I have seen no public announcement to that effect,” Bodge notes.
Because Amazon offers many ways to return items, the e-commerce behemoth wins for the most convenient return policy. For many items, shoppers can choose from a menu of ways to return their purchases, from printing return labels and shipping themselves to dropping off items without needing labels or boxing at a UPS store or partner brick-and-mortar store such as Whole Foods or Kohl’s. Some of these options are free while others are associated with a charge subtracted from the return credit.
“The good news is that if you return an Amazon purchase to a Kohl’s store, you may walk away with your Amazon credit plus some Kohl’s cash as a thank you,” Bodge says.
While Walmart’s standard 90-day return policy ties with Target’s for length, it wins for being the simplest and most comprehensive. Most categories of items automatically fall into this category — even some major electronics like TVs. The most notable exception is computers and digital products (like cameras and tablets), which must be returned within 15 days for a full refund.
Walmart even extends its 90-day return window to its vast food and nonperishable grocery offerings. Bodge notes that Walmart will accept returns of perishable food items if they go bad before their “best buy” date.
Regardless of where you shop, we live in a golden age of generous return policies. Just make sure you’re up to date on current return policies so you understand your return windows and conditions if the purchase you make doesn’t quite work out.
Alesandra Dubin is Los Angeles-based lifestyle journalist with an emphasis in commerce and deals content. Her work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Prevention, Insider, Glamour, Shondaland, AFAR, Parents, Travel + Leisure, TODAY and countless other online and print outlets. Alesandra has a masters degree in journalism with an emphasis on cultural reporting and criticism from NYU, and a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley.
