After months of burning through your budget and stressing over finding the perfect presents, the season of giving is officially over.
But its remnants, like that horrendous sweater your mom gave you (and which you pretended to love) and those purchases you thought twice about gifting, are still staring at you like an untouched chore list, just waiting to be returned.
Luckily for those of you who can’t be bothered to do it yourself, there are professionals who will do it for you, per The Wall Street Journal.
- ReturnQueen — a six-year-old, first-of-its-kind reverse logistics startup — charges a ~$10 flat fee for pickups (up to 12 items per) and takes care of packaging, labeling, and shipping. Customers simply leave returns on their doorstep, then a courier retrieves and delivers them to a ReturnQueen facility to be processed for shipping.
- Ungrateful gift recipients are also tapping TaskRabbit, which reported a 62% YoY jump in return-related bookings across November and December, with most taskers charging ~$34 to run errands around this time.
- Larger companies like Uber and UPS offer similar services, while smaller ones like College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving are looking to enter the business to handle heavier return items following customer inquiries.
‘Tis the season of returns
An estimated 17% of holiday purchases will be returned, and 82% of people will return a holiday gift within a month of receiving it, per the National Retail Federation.
Historically, January and February are the biggest months for returns, during which ReturnQueen expects to see a 15%-20% increase in demand.
But returns aren’t just a seasonal issue
Americans are estimated to have returned ~$850B worth of merchandise in 2025, and overall return rates have doubled since 2019.
And while returns can be a nuisance for consumers, for retailers, they can present huge operational costs. A 2023 report found that processing a return can cost retailers ~40% of the item’s original price, and many returns often end up in landfills.
To handle the growing number of returns, the NRF found that ~75% of retailers are now charging restocking fees — some as high as $45.
Tack the cost of a return service onto those restocking fees, and it might just be worth it to keep pretending to love that sweater until you actually do.
