Free Amazon returns at Coal's what's the process? Like, Hey there, amrich Demiro. This is rich on Tech Daily. Did you know that you can return the items you buy at Amazon for free at select Coal stores. It's an unlikely partnership, but recently I tried out the process to see how it goes. First, some background. The two companies announced the partnership back in September twenty seventeen. It's offered in a
select group of stores in Los Angeles and Chicago. You bring your stuff to Coals, they pack it up and then ship it back to Amazon for free. There are apparently even dedicated parking spots near the front door, although I did miss this when I return my stuff.
So what does Coals.
Get out of this? Well, more traffic and an Amazon's smart Home experience. In several stores, this is where they basically show off Amazon's smart home products like Alexa and all the stuff you can use with it. So it's sort of a two way street with mutual benefits for both companies. So what's the process of returning an Amazon item to Coles?
Really? Like? Well, it's pretty easy. Here's how I tried it.
I bought four phone cases for my phone, knowing I would only keep the one that I liked. So when I went to return the other three, Amazon wanted seven dollars for return shipping. Well, yeah, understandable because this was my fault. There was no issue with the product. I don't lie when I returned stuff to Amazon. I just tell them what the deal is, and I said, I just didn't need it anymore. So when you return something that's not defective, it'll tell you how much it will
cost to return the item in various ways. So if it's your fault and you have really no issue with the product except you just don't want it anymore, sometimes they will charge you a couple of dollars to return it via the mail or.
Something like that.
If it's defective, sometimes Amazon will pay for shipping. But in this case, it was my fault and I just said, hey, I didn't need these anymore. And so my main option that was free was the coal's option. The other options were not available to me, like the Amazon locker. Mailing it back would have cost seven dollars. So I said, you know what, let me try this out. The only thing was I had to drive just a little further to find a Lowcay where this was offered at a
coals near me. But when I got there, I was immediately greeted by an associate who noticed the Amazon packaging I had in my hand, and he directed me right to a special Amazon's return desk near the front door. I was pretty impressed. I thought I was gonna go to like a cashier or something, but it was a whole area set up just for this purpose. Then once I got there, another helpful associate with a smile, took the items from me. She scanned a QR code right
off the screen on my phone. She printed out a receipt and I was off. The interesting thing was she didn't even look at the stuff that I had in the packaging. So you know, if you go to best Buy or whatever and you return to Electronic, they kind of take it all out, make sure all the parts are there, make sure all the pieces are there. I guess Amazon must do that on the back end when
they receive your goods. So the receipt that I got had a twenty five percent off coupon off of one transaction good for seven days, and that was pretty much it. The transaction was done. Now, obviously they give you that little coupon so that you stay in the store and maybe a shop, maybe you buy something at Coal's. I did not do that. I just walked out of the store. But my receipt said that it would take up to
twenty one days to process my refund. But I had an email from Amazon about three hours later in my inbox saying that my return was processed and a credit was issued to my visa for about forty five dollars. So I did not spend a thing to return these back to Amazon. The other neat thing about this process is that you don't have to pack your stuff up now. I brought it in an Amazon envelope that they sent
to me, But you don't have to do that. All you have to do is bring the products in and Coals apparently we'll get them into Amazon in a nice fashion. The question is will this partnership expand will it last? As far as I can tell from the announcement date, it doesn't seem like they added any news stores to the ones that are already doing this. But who knows
if this will last. Time will tell. But all I have to say is returning an item to Coles that you bought from Amazon is fast and easy, and it's kind of a nice alternative to packing things up and shipping them back. A lot of people don't have the tape around their house or the boxes they need. The Amazon lockers, I find are a pretty easy option too.
Of course, Amazon just wants to make the purchase and returns process as easy as possible for all of their customers, because the more comfortable you are knowing you can return something easily, the more comfortable you are clicking that buy button. Thanks so much for listening. You can find a link if you want to watch my full video review of the returns process at cools from Amazon on my website.
Just go to richon tech dot tv for the link.
And if you like what I'm doing with this podcast, please leave a review in the Apple Podcasts app. All you have to do is search for my podcast and look for the part where it says write a review.
I'm Rich Demiro. I'll talk to you real soon.