Returning holiday gifts? Keep these tips in mind

Key Facts

"They're shrinking the returns window, and they're increasingly making you pay to ship it back," Charisse Jones, national business correspondent at USA Today, told CBS Mornings.
For instance, Amazon allows most items bought from October 11 through December 25 to be returned through the end of January — shrinking the window for returns from the previous year.
A large fraction of returned items will need to be heavily discounted because, by the time it's been sent back and put on the floor, it's out of season or out of style, she noted.
It can also mean you get your money back more quickly, by processing the return in-store, rather than sending it to a faraway processing center.