Americans will return $90 billion worth of holiday gifts this year

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published 27 December 2017

U.S. consumers will return roughly $90 billion worth of goods this holiday season, according to an estimate by Optoro, which estimates shopping return shipments. That amounts to roughly 15 percent of all holiday purchases, estimates Raj Subramaniam, FedEx's head of marketing. Gift returns represent a potential windfall in business for FedEx and UPS as online sales rise, partly by making drop-off locations convenient.

"Being able to return is now a competitive tool," Bruce Cohen, head of strategy and private equity for retail and consumer products at consulting firm Kurt Salmon, a unit of Accenture, told CNBC. "If it's a pain for customers to return items, they will go elsewhere."

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.