Suburban shoppers return to the malls to exchange gifts, snatch up sales
For many suburban residents, this week began at the same place last week ended: the mall.
Frenzied shoppers returned to the stores on what some analysts call “Mega Monday” to snatch up post-holiday clearance merchandise, redeem gift cards and bring back unwanted or ill-fitting gifts.
Ruth Johnson, in town from Kansas City, Kansas, to celebrate Christmas with her family in the suburbs, used the gift cards she got to buy things like $5 T-shirts and $15 jeans at Old Navy's 75 percent off clearance sale in Schaumburg.
“You can't pass up 75 percent off. How often is that going to happen?” added fellow shopper Madison Burke, 18, of Mount Prospect.
Srividya Surayanarayanan of Lake Villa, meanwhile, snapped up sale items at Gurnee Mills.
“We got home from India last week and missed the Thanksgiving sales,” said Surayanarayanan. “Today was the right time to buy this stuff.”
Other shoppers, however, were busy making returns.
About one-third of holiday shoppers return gifts, according to the National Retail Federation's 2011 Holiday Returns Survey. For that reason and others, the day after Christmas is one of the busiest shopping days of the year. The NRF estimates $46 billion worth of merchandise that was purchased before Christmas will be returned — an increase of 4 percent over last year.
A few of those returns will be done by Kristy Osters, 23, of Hoffman Estates, who was making four stops in the Schaumburg area Monday to return gifts.
“I just like to get it done,” she said. “I'll return it all now, and maybe come back and shop later.”
With online shopping at record levels, people have to decide how they want to return their purchases: pay to have it shipped back; bring it back to the store and stand in line to return it; or maybe just keep it and avoid the hassle.
“We're having a problem deciding how to return things,” Burke said.
The U.S. Post Office was closed Monday and UPS wasn't doing pickups, but the UPS Store in Libertyville had customers Monday who were shipping back packages to online retailers like Amazon and Zappos.
Many of the packages had prepaid return shipping labels — a perk the online businesses use to compete with retail stores — but not all companies do.
“I'm sure we'll get a lot more returns later this week,” said store owner Mike Winter.
NRF's 2011 Holiday Returns Survey showed nine in 10 Americans (90.1 percent) say they find stores return policies to be fair, up from 88.4 percent last year. It could be because of a rise in gift receipts being issued, NRF executives said.
Another post-holiday rush is taking place at suburban libraries, where help desks are bracing themselves for an onslaught of callers and visitors who want to know how to use the new e-readers they received for Christmas. E-readers and tablets were some of the biggest items this holiday season.
Sara Sabo, director of public services for the Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin, says they've become popular gifts for baby boomers who often turn to the library for help.
“We call it an e-book tsunami,” she said, noting that after holidays like Mother's Day or Christmas, the staff expects a jump in inquiries ranging from “How do I turn this thing on?” to complicated questions about the software.
Like many libraries, Gail Borden Library rents out thousands of e-books, and allows patrons to check out up to five at once. The books are compatible with almost every e-reader or smartphone.
“We're adding as many books as possible we possibly can,” Sabo said.