Day after Christmas brings out the bargain hunters

Jackie McHenry and Kelly Enniss spent Christmas day opening large boxes to find little gifts.

“I’ll put little things like gift cards in big boxes,” Enniss said.

As is the case for many other deal-savvy shoppers, the big presents come the day after Christmas.

“We’ll give each other little things on Christmas day, but we always go shopping the day after to get our real presents,” McHenry said.

Enniss added, “You get more bang for your buck.”

The couple got an early start Monday shopping for post-Christmas deals in Downtown Summerlin.

“I bought a Brahmin handbag (at Dillard’s) for 70 percent off,” McHenry said.

Enniss said he doesn’t know what he wants yet for Christmas, but he is looking around.

McHenry and Enniss joined thousands of other shoppers Monday, who were either looking for deals or getting started on their holiday returns. The day after Christmas is the busiest time for holiday returns, according to retail analytics solutions provider The Retail Equation.

Laura Armeni, who was browsing for deals at Town Square after visiting Target earlier Monday morning, said she will be returning or exchanging about $1,000 worth of gifts.

“It’s primarily stuff that didn’t fit,” she said, like clothes and shoes. Of course, there are also those few presents that she just didn’t like, she said.

“And we got some duplicate toys for the baby.”

She said she will wait until next week to start returns. Monday is deal day.

“If you can start early, it’s worth it in the end,” Armeni said.

At Target she said she saved about $65, and at the Container Store in Town Square she found some discounted wrapping paper and gift supplies for next year.

Ava, who didn’t want to give her last name, made deal-hunting into a family outing Monday at Fashion Show mall.

Her mom, who didn’t want to give her name, said she had about $200 worth of returns or exchanges.

Monday is a good day to go shopping because she has the day off from work, the deals are enticing, and she can enjoy shopping for gifts without the pressure of having to buy somebody something for a specific occasion, she said.

Kenneth Ramos, who works at Gap inside the mall, said “it’s been busier than (it was) leading up to Christmas.”

Co-worker Soheila Muzen dubbed the craziness as “second black-Friday.”

Holiday returns make up a quarter of all returns that happen through the year, according to Optoro, a D.C.-based business that helps big retailers re-sell extra inventory.

“In 2015, more than 10 percent of holiday sales were returned, amounting to $63 billion in merchandise,” said Carly Llewellyn, a spokeswoman for Optoro in an email.

“We expect that number to be even higher this year,” she said. “As more and more sales move online, we expect to see the return rate continue to climb.”

UPS has deemed Jan. 6 National Returns Day, when they expect to see the most packages returned. They expect to handle 5 million domestic returns pacakges during the first full week of January.

Although retailers are bracing for returns, gift cards should help to recoup costs, according to the Retail Economist, which does a weekly retail-sales report with Goldman Sachs.

“The growth of gift cards, which account for about a quarter of all holiday expenditures, has actually meant less is returned or exchanged (over time),” said Mike Niemira, founder, principal and chief economist of The Retail Economist, in an email.

“The combined impact of the need to return something and the likely redemption of some of those gift cards is more than likely a benefit for retailers,” he said. “Half the battle is to get consumers back into the store, but once they do and have a gift card to redeem, the net effect is positive for retailers. Generally, consumers spend more than the gift card value.”

Consumers redeem about 15 percent to 20 percent gift card values between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Niemira said.

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.