It's December 26, 2011 and everyone's enjoying their presents and planning for next year. You'd think that'd be the case, right? Well... Not for some people.

Every year there's those few gifts that you weren't expecting. It's an estimated 10% of gifts this year have been returned. That's about $46 billion worth of presents returned this year. Stores receive the highest number of returns on December 26 every year! The next highest numbers of returns every year occur on the following days and decrease the next day (Dec 27, 28, 29, etc.)

Here are the percentages of the categories of gifts returned this year:
Clothing and shoes, 62%.
Toys, games and hobbies, 16%.
Consumer electronics, 14%.
Kitchen and bath, 13%.
Beauty and cosmetics, 10%.
Jewelry and watches, 10%.

But not everyone wants to return their gift. 18% donate it to charity or some other organization of the sort. 15% will try to re-gift it. 11% will throw it away. 6% will try to resell it at a higher price than what the store is selling it for. 2% give it to the person that gave it to them and tell them to return it. Are you one of these people?

Another reason people are returning their gifts is because of the huge spending around Black Friday. People are finding that they are spending too much so that they have no money around Christmas and end up returning what they bought instead of giving it away.

Here's a few questions to answer: What gift(s) didn't you like this year? Are you planning on returning anything? Do you think someone has returned or going to return what you got them for Christmas?

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Sources:
http://www.inquisitr.com/172501/the-most-returned-christmas-gifts-46-billion-in-clothes-electronics-and-jewelry-head-back-to-the-store/
http://shine.yahoo.com/financiallyfit/most-returned-holiday-gifts-032500476.html