Okay, so maybe this is a little more fitting for the Airlines forum than Europe, but I never go there, and don't know anything about what gets typically posted.

But with the biggest Christmas shopping day of the year imminent and the worst air travel day of the year right behind, this headline seems relevant to travel buffs...

<<Quick & Easy Gift Returns? Not!

Sears has restocking fees; Penney wants the "return tag" intact, and other stores are implementing changes...>>

It's the tagline from a story on netscape.com and it seems quite germane to how airline tickets are priced (the similarities are not totally apropos - - returned merchandise can be re-sold, an unused seat that leaves the gate empty can not)...

...but the relentless pursuit of lower prices is what brought the $100 change fee and airlines' loyalty quotients to record lows (reflected in part, in all that red ink on their books).

Will the WalMart-ization (and amazon-ization and eBay-ization) of retail shopping bring the same thing? $25 to return a shirt if you keep it over a Saturday night? $89 if you buy one leg of a pair of "thigh-highs"... but $17 if you buy both? (I'll resist the temptation to work "open jaw" into a discussion of women's legwear)...

Did I catch some virus from BillynBettyJones?

Happy shopping and flying...

couch-potato-ing too... and...

Best wishes,

Rex

Why not simply, NO REFUND.
Too many abilities around

As a child I loved all the presents at Yuletide but now I prefer little gifts throughout the year.

Some electronic stores in San Francisco had that "re-stocking" fee several years ago. When I needed something, I always called ahead to ask what's their return policy.

Now gift certificates look so much more appealing

I actually recently returned a Dell. I didn't read the fine print (a potential 15% restocking fee). So I returned the computer and bought another Dell. Fortunately they didn't charge me a restocking fee. But they didn't refund the shipping on the first computer, and I had to pay the shipping cost for shipping the computer back.

Anyway, takk u, rex.

>>>>>
Will the WalMart-ization (and amazon-ization and eBay-ization) of retail shopping bring the same thing? $25 to return a shirt if you keep it over a Saturday night?
>>>>>

quite the opposite i think. maybe they will toughen up on returns but i think liberal return policies of the big chains helped to put the small guys out of business. people come to expect it as the norm (similar to not ever waiting to pay for something), and they start to see the family owned store as "unfriendly" because it won't let you return the dress that you wore once and then decided you didn't like.

I seem to recall reading that it was common among the "fashionable" set to buy an outfit, wear it to an event, then decide is wasn't just right and return it, demanding, and getting, a full refund. The stores that carry the expensive lines usually push service, rather than value, and are helpless to deal with what seems to me to be fundamental dishonesty.

Of course, the other people who shopped at that retailer bore the cost of this chicanery in higher prices.

Even in such an unglamorous place as Home Depot or their ilk, it is not uncommon to find a product in a box that has been taped up, with the supposedly new equipment bearing obvious signs of usage.