American Eagle Return Policy

Now a days there are so many stores that are so alike it is hard to decide which one to shop at. You can shop at Meijers, Target, or Wal-Mart or if your apparel shopping you have American Eagle, Abercrombie, Hollister, or Aeropostale, just to name a few. Yes, they all have some unique thing about them be it the "Everyday low prices" of Wal-Mart or the distinct look of an Abercrombie outfit. Consumers go out knowing what they want and what store they are going to shop at.

I think we need to start focusing on a new section of the stores when deciding where to shop and that is the store's return policy. Of all stores I think Target has the worst return policy, that is strictly enforced. They will practically do nothing for you unless you have a receipt, which 75% of the time I never have mine. Which means make SURE you really want that item and its the right kind, shape, and size because they will give you a hard time if you want to return it.

The most liberal return policy I have ever seen was when I was working at American Eagle. They will take back anything, tags or no tags, receipt or no receipt, worn or not. I had had customers return something that was 2 or 3 years old. Can you imagine how many times they had worn it? But we still had to take it back. Although this may be a benefit for the customer I think it really hurts the company.

Once while I was working I had a customer come to me with a pile of clothes that he wanted to return, with no receipt, and then another pile of clothes that he wanted to buy. Well none of the clothes he was returning were his size and I could tell he had a brought a bag in with him and stuffed it so he looked like he had came into the store with them and then just returned them to get money. I pulled my manager aside and told him about it but there was nothing we could do. So the customer got away with walking into the store, stuffing a bag full of clothing and then returning these clothes for clothes that he had picked out.

Who knows how many people have actually done this but I know the store got ripped out a few hundred dollars that day. It pays to have a return policy that people respect but a company is not wise to have one as loose as American Eagles.