It's a Wrap: From Buy to Return

Nearly 80% of shoppers are saying they plan to shop those post Christmas end of year sales and the deepest discounts we've seen in years. Today is expected to be the fifth biggest shopping day of the year according to Shopper Track.

Now, a lot of that spending will be gift cards, with gift card spending projected to grow about 4% to nearly $30 billion total. That's an average of $163 per holiday Shopper. Now, retailers hope that those Shoppers will use the gift cards soon to give December's tepid retail sales growth a much needed boost.

Those cards are not booked as revenue until they're redeemed, so they really want them to use them soon and the hope is that Shoppers will spend more than the value of the card. 

Other than cashing in on gift cards, the other big thing on shoppers to-do list today is returns, which are not so good for retailer. Some $60 billion in returns are expected, bringing the total amount of returns this year to $258 billion. That's according to Liquidity Services, and about a third of Americans will return at least one gift after the holidays. A third of those returns will be completed before the New Year. 

Another downside of the returns is that nearly 6% of returns are fraudulent according to the National Retail Federation. After Black Friday's spending decline will see whether significant returns leave retailers with excess inventory or whether those discounts bring enough people into the stores.