Okay, I’m giving in! I’m going to return my gifts that I don’t want tomorrow because I am driving back to college in the afternoon… I want to go early! Do stores open typically earlier than usual on the day after christmas… these are the stores that I need to return to:
JC Penney
Kohls
Express for Men
Office Depot
KMart
Any tips for returning?.. I’ll be expecting long lines… I know
Also, a lot of these receipts say “Store credit only” Do stores typically give you cash back if you exchange for an item of much lesser value? So, if I return my trivial pursuit: 90’s edition (I already have it) which is valued at $30.00 and exchange for a pair of $2.00 socks, would I get the $27.00 in cash back if there is nothing else that I want in the store or will they apply that to a gift card that I will never use?
I have no idea on the store opening times - I’m pretty sure that will vary pretty widely by the particular store (a lot of times, a store’s opening time is dictated by the mall or shopping center in which they’re located, as well as regional rules, etc. etc.)
Store return policies also vary pretty greatly. I know that when I worked the courtesy desk at Wal-Mart (a long time ago), post Christmas returns were greatly simplified - everybody got cash back so that they could just go buy what they wanted to and take it to a regular register, in order to minimize the horrific lines at the return registers - during the post-Christmas season, my store opened 4 regular registers as returns only. And man, some people would get pissed when we told them they were getting cash back. Of course, if anyone fought it too hard, I’d let them do the exchange instead, and let them stand in a 20 person deep line all over again if that’s what they really wanted. However, the store’s normal policy was that you couldn’t get back more than $10.00 (and I’ve seen this vary from one Wal-Mart to the next) without a receipt. Once they started using stored-value cards though, it dropped to $5.00 - if the amount coming back was more than 5, it went on a card. I would imagine that the scenario above - post-Christmas return with no receipt - would probably end up getting you a card as well.
If the stores stated policy is “Store Credit Only”, that’s very likely what you’re going to get, whether on a stored-value card or in an exchange at the desk.
The best bet to save yourself headache and hassle is just to call each of the stores and find out from them, or try visiting their website and find the hours listed there.