Massachusetts Customers Effected By New Amazon Return Policy

Massachusetts is a great place to live. Residents and visitors have their choice of city or county life, plenty of restaurants, and of course plenty of shopping.

Massachusetts is home to many independent retailers, from bookstores to sports equipment and gift shops. While small and family-owned businesses are a vital part of the state's economy, big box stores have their place in Massachusetts as well.

While Massachusetts is home to plenty of brick-and-mortar retailers, online shopping is still quite prevalent with Bay State residents, specifically Amazon. Nationwide. 92% of online shoppers use Amazon, and that rings true in Massachusetts as well. A new change to the company's return policy will affect those Massachusetts shoppers.

Amazon Makes Major Changes to Return Policy for Massachusetts Shoppers

Walmart is enacting a new return policy that will affect customers in Massachusetts, along with the rest of the U.S. The new policy? "Refund without returns". While that policy might sound confusing, in theory it's pretty simple. The approach will allow customers to keep less expensive items that Walmart decides are too difficult or costly to ship back or resell. Basically, it's not worth their time to take back the item.

So, how does a company like Amazon decide which items are eligible for the "refund without returns" policy? According to NBC, to make the decision, "the algorithms assess multiple factors, including the extent to which a shopper should be trusted based on prior purchasing and returning patterns, shipping costs, and the demand for the product in the customer’s hands".

Have you experienced Amazon's "refund without returns" policy?