Traditionally if a store cant resell it, returned items are tossed out or sold to liquidators at a loss, but retailers are changing the way they are handling returns. Court any reagan has this weeks cover story, exchange rate. Reporter americans returned 260 billion in merchandise to retailers last year, or 8 of total purchases. Even higher around the holiday season. According to gartner research, less than half is resold leaving retailers booking big losses, in some cases as much as 10 of total sales. Add in the surge of Online Shopping and the problem gets even bigger. Return rates from online sales can be 30 or more, and that has research from gartner warning retailers the old way of dealing with returns is a ticking time bomb. Retailers are not very good at managing returns right now, and so unless they invest in their ability to manage returns, the volume back will cause problems in their overall supply chain. Reporter best buy is one retailer working on ways to recoup losses associated with returned goods, adding open box merchandise to its store and web inventory, increase the chances of selling those items at a discount while decreation losses. But now theres a new option for retailers, one company is working to disrupt the traditional model for dealing with returns. The Company Claims its technology finds the best resale price across marketplaces for retailers the moment the return is scanned at the store. Currently many retailers are getting 15 cents to 30 cents on dollar for these returns because they are having such trouble economically processing them and getting them to the next best market. Were able to get them to double and triple the recovery. Reporter after merchandise is returned to a retailer, it ends up here at the warehouse in tennessee. The bulk of the items are electronics, but theres garden, baby items, and, of course, clothing. The goods are tested and inspected and once they are given a clean bill of health they are red for resale on their sight, amazon and ebay. 17 other top 20 u. S. Retailers and manufacturers use their technology. It can be a win win win. Retailers recoup more on reduced goods and waste is reduced and consumers get another discount shopping option. Courtney reagan in mt. Juliet, tennessee. If you received a gift thats not quite right, Stacey Tisdale is a financial journalist and author and the big problem i see one wanted gifts is telling someone who had the kindness and generosity to give that you would like to return it. Is there a gift receipt, do you need one. You do need a gift receipt and do need some of the original tags. Otherwise youre probably not going to get a return but we have to rethink this. Okay. Its really hard to tell someone gnaw want to return their gift. So we real very to think of it as youre wasting their money. But youre saying the people who love you enough to give you a gift or like you enough or feel obligated enough to have a gift want you to have a gift that youre actually using so better is to ask them for a receipt and when you go to the store are you bound tone counter problems at the senators . Big retailers lyric walmart and target have a 90day return policy. Nice, nice. But its complicated this year because some stores are being more lenient and others are tightening up so its really on the consumer to know. What about the online returns, easier or harder when it comes to bricks and more senator. When it comes to online, look at the individual retailer. As long as an item is marked free returns when you get it, as long as you have that original certificate its pretty hasslefree, you can return it it has to be a trackable shipping method. And you mentioned a trackable package but in some cases you might be on the hook for return shipping. If you bring it to a ups store its going to be free. If you ask ups to pick it up you might have to pay a little bit. This has been an issue for me in years past where i get a gift card but its to a retailer that i just dont use, they dont offer things that i want. Can you ever return gift cards. You have three terrific options. You can actually exchange it and get the cash value, and theres sites like raise. Com which will find, you know, people to actually buy your gift card and a great one is giftcardgranny. Com where youll find a bunch of buyers and sellers and match them together and one thing that i love you can donate the value of the card to charity. Theres various sites that will give you full to partial value and youll get a tax receipt and a lot of fraud out there in this area so make sure you do your research and make sure reputable site. Thanks so much for a lot of great advice. Appreciate that. Happy new year. Happy new year to you, too. Always fun to be here. Heres a look at whats making news as we head into a new week and a new year on the money. Sears is getting a 200 million loan from its own ceo, eddie lampert, the struggling retailers biggest investor is offering a line of credit through his hedge fund this. 200 million is on top of the 800 million hes already loaned the chain over the past two years. Hopes for the dow to cross the historic 20,000 level this week were delayed after come close on tuesday, falling just 18 points shy of 20,000. The Dow Jones Industrial average closed thursday about 230 points below the milestone. Stocks fell further on friday. The postelection stock rally has boosted Warren Buffetts holdings. His bets on banks and airlines helped him gain 12 year. According to forbes the oracle of omahas 72. 4 billion fortune makes him the bickest gainer among wealthy u. S. Individuals. Hes again the worlds second richest person behind only bill gates. Facebook is still the most popular Smartphone App according to nielsen. The social media giant has 146 million unique users, thats up 14 over last year. Facebook messenger comes in second and third place goes to Googles Youtube with nearly 114 million users. Up next, were on the money. Healthy food delivered to your door, the model for an online organic food delivery startup. Will it make healthy food more affordable . And later, get your finances in shape for the new year, the resolutions you should make and how to achieve them. And now a look at how the stock market ended the week. The world is full of surprising moments. Theyre everywhere. And as a marriot rewards member, i can embrace them all. The new marriott portfolio of hotels now has 30 brands in over 110 countries. So no matter where you go, you are here. Join or link accounts at members. Marriott. Com. When you head to the grocery store, if you want products without pesticides, it can be expensive to choose organic, but a new startup thrive market was built as an online combination, maybe picture whole food and cost comatched together, selling healthy food at Warehouse Club prices. Nick green is thrive markets cofounder and coceo. Nick, great to talk to you today. Thanks for having me. So, give me the idea behind an online organic grocery big box store. So, our idea is to make Healthy Living affordable and accessible for anyone. We deliver anywhere in the country. Ship via ups and fedex. We offer prices o organic products, shelf stable products you put in your pantry, for example national, are 25 to 50 off what you would find in a conventional retail store. You said shelf stable so give me an idea of what customers might find among your offerings. Anything that doesnt go in the refrigerator but might go in the pantry, for example, that we would carry on thrive market. But because that produce and dairy and eggs and things like that are among the things that people who care about organic go to first, is there a plan to include that in the future . You know, there may be. Were certainly looking into it, but for us right now what we think is save the money on your nonperishable products by shopping on thrive and leave more money to buy locally at farmers markets and things like that. So right now how many customers do you have and where do they live . We have hundreds of thousands of customers, over 350,000 paid members on the site. Membership is 60 a year. What kind of benefits come with membership . Its really the first time that people can go online an get prices that they want as the price of conventional equivalence. Is there any Quality Control over the products youre offering . Are you going out to the suppliers and making sure that they are actually fulfilling the standard that you expect with organic and glutenfree, fair trade and those things . Absolutely. So were hyper, hyper rigorous about standards. Its exclusively nongmo in all the food products. We look for organic. We look for natural and then we actually tag every single product that comes on the site. If they want it to be fair trade and vegan and Carbon Neutral company can, you click, click, click and literally can sort the entire catalog according to what youre looking glore it seems like every time you turn aron Grocery Stores are trying to get into this online game and also one of the Biggest Online retailers amazon is also providing food, so who is your biggest competition here . You know, we really dont see any direct competitors. The brick and Mortar Stores dont have the same selection on na to amazon its sort of information and choice overload. Theres lots of stuff there but sorting through the morass and understanding what is the high quality product and products that are really organic and nongmo is hard to figure out. Our goal is to simplify it and no one is doing that for consumers online right now. The aptly named nick green. Thanks so much for talking about thrive market. Of course. Thanks for having me. Severe Winter Weather and cancelled flights in some parts of the country are forcing travelers to spend more holiday time in airports than they planned, but a new j. D. Pour survey found surprisingly satisfaction with u. S. Airports is at an alltime high. Phil lebeau has more. Reporter admit it. You dont like spending a lot of time at an airport, between long security lines and growing clouds. Most of us just want to get on a plane and get out of town but a new survey shows people are actually happy with their airport experience. The airports aremp the improvements they had in hand and on the drawing boards before 9 11 back in 2001 were kind of put on hold because of a lot of security concerns and just other things at the airports were having to do to accommodate new security regulations, and so those plans are now being actually carried out. Reporter new restaurants, shops and sprucedup terminals are becoming more common at airports. According to j. D. Pour, portland, taerka, orlando and miami have the heist satisfaction scores. By comparison, some of americas oldest airports are rated as the worst. That includes new york laguardia, new york liberty, philadelphia and chicago ohare. Those airports face greater congestion as they add flights and millions of travelers who put extra strain on old terminals and gates. Its a problem president elect trump hopes to solve by spending 1 trillion on americas aging infrastructure, including rundown airports. Were going to rebuild become, by the way, second to none. Some airports like laguardia are in the process of being ren vatd but for many others it could be a while before we see the repairs that weve all been clamoring for. Meantime, a lot of travelers in the u. S. Apparently like what they see and feel in some of our older airports. Phil lebeau, on the money, chicago. Up next, were on the money. Its a new year and time to get yourself and your finances in shape. The goals you should make and how to stick with them. And later, whats next in tech from wearables to smart homes. We show you the gadge hey steve check out this guys leg. What . No. I just broke my leg. No, this is a full blown move in to the basement, youre gonna be out of work without that money from. Aflac you might miss your rent. Aww i just moved out. Bummer man. Hey i used to have my own place. Yeah . No, no i live with my mom, but its cool. Health can change but the life you love doesnhave to, keep your lifestyle healthy with. Aflac its a new year and that means new resolutions. While many of us make goals to lose weight its important also to get financially fit. Joining us now is personal finance expert and New York Times bestselling author Lynnette Khalfani cox. Thank you so much for being here, lynnette. Great to have you. Thank you. You have this book called zero debt where you talk about getting out from under 100,000 debt. Its a crazy amount, i know, and it is crazy, it was. This was back in 2001. Had 100,000 in credit card it off in three years. Had to do a lot of things to start digging out. Like what . Well, first off, avoid what i call the minimum payment trap, so you might think youre improving your cash flow, making just those minimum payments, but minimum payments now in the short run really mean maximum payments in the long run so double and triple your payments. You can also negotiate with your creditors, try to get those Interest Rates knocked down, even if you want change the payment due date to make it better aligned with your paycheck schedule and then go on a credit holiday. Time to start using cash now. Stop digging yourself deeper into debt. A lot of people when they are focused on their debt they are also worried about their credit scores. How do you go about improving your credit score. Credit is huge these days because, of course, its going to affect the Interest Rate on your loops and all that have and also jobs. Your ability to get a better paying job in 2017 and beyond, and the society for Human Resources management did a study and found that 58 of u. S. Employers do you should do is start to monitor your credit. Be educated about your credit and use some tools that will help you. Creditsesame. Com is one. Great apps, free online tool, get a free credit score and get some guidance about how to improve your credit rating. You talk about disputing errors. Thats right. So when you go through your Credit Report and you see something you disagree, dispute it with the credit bureaus. And 80 of Credit Reports have mistakes on them. And what we want to talk about is saving money for the new year. Thats right. We save so little of our income. The average american has less than 500 set aside to deal with an emergency. Thats horrible. Jump start your savings by doing a couple of things. One is using windfalls. A lot of people will get a big tax refund check. The irs says 3,000 is the average. Use the tax refund check to bolster your savings and also sell stuff that you dont need. Some people have gift cards that they got sites like raise. Com will let you cash in your gift card and gazelle. Com lets you trade in electronics, use the money to boost your savings. Its such great advice and then we just have to remember to carry it through to the next year. Happy new year, lynnette. Thanks for the wisdom. Thanks for having me on. Up nbc on the money, a look at the news in the week ahead hand what will the Technology Look like in 2017 in idnt know you cant ever heard live without. I thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohns disease. I didnt think there was anything else to talk about. But then i realized there was. So, i finally broke the silence with my doctor about what i was experiencing. He said humira is for people like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohns disease. In clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. And many achieved remission. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. If youre still just managing your symptoms, talk with your gastroenterologist about humira. With humira, remission is possible. For more on our show and our guests go to our websites otm. Cnbc. Com, and you can follow us on twitter at onthemoney. Here are the stories come up oney this week. On mondahe markets will be closed to observe the new year. Tuesday well get a read on the economy when decembers ism manufacturing report comes out. Wednesday, the auto sales for the last month of 2016 will be released and the minutes from decembers Federal Reserve meeting will be released. On thursday the Consumer Electronics show in las vegas kicks off, and well get a glimpse of the latest technology coming on to the market. Friday well see just how many jobs were created in december. Ahead of ces here to show us some of the biggest techents contribution tim krunch and jim velazco of engadget. 50 of our tie. Jordan, whats ahead with social media. Snapchatsnapchat pecticles a deal. They record while they are on your face and send it to your phone. Like the introduction of hardware to social media which is an interests kind of new thing. And bodes not so great walking into rest rooms if you see people wearing funky classrooms. These have a light, i can show you, so if i start recording, light will go off so you know when someone is recording and it records for up to 30 seconds with audio and send it to your sgloen what about artificial intelligence, chris, what are we expecting to see . Well see ai become more ubiquitous and personal, especially with guys like this. This guy ice fame ises cou tiny robot and acts like a star wars droid and has a personality. Has a builtin camera and can tell what hes looking at and identify you. You download an app. To your smartphone and once thats all connected and he can tell who you are and say your fame and after you use him a while it goes to show how interesting it is that this data is being pulled by a robot in front of you, farmed over to serve verse and krufrpd and comes right back to you. Can he clean a bath rom . Not yet. Thats in version two. Lets talk about what would be useful in our home, gadgets like nest and drop kin have been in our home space. We have google home here. Just like the amazon echo where you can use the strois give a command and they are using ai, for example, the alexa can let you order an uber. I think the idea is for these Big Tech Companies to have some connective language that can you control your lights or your oven or your washing machine, instead of having to open up seven apps on your phone and trying to command these different devices, you have the singular hub that you can use your voice to talk to so everything is becoming more and more natural. And then if you hear it on tv, apparently tv can now control these devices, too, but, hey, okay, google. Am i your friend . I have a lot of best friends. I guess you can call me a people person. She can hang out with me. That would be fine. What about fitness . Were hearing about all these wearables that help you achieve your fitness calls. Smartwatches and fitness wearables tend to get lumped into the same category and they are performing really, really differently. You have seen the market tank over the past few months and basic wearables have taken off and smart watch makers are trying to do a blend of both so with Something Like this, samsungs gs3 its responsible smart watch and can you send Text Messages and can you use it to automatically track your workouts. You jump on an elliptical going for it, it will say youre on an elliptical, lets kick off this workout. Great to see you. Happy new year. Happy new year. Hand thats the show for today. Im Contessa Brewer in for becky. Thanks so much for joining us. Next week with for employers allowing flexible schedules, could you set your own hours hand just leave that 9 to 5 00 behind . Each week keep it here. We are on the money. Have a great one. See you next week and happy new year. Good morning, america. Ringing in the new year. Times square packed with people to welcome 2017. Were right there with the crowd celebrating in style. Its a new years rockin eve from new york city. And mariah carey taking the stage at the crossroads of the world. Never brought to mind to hollywood i dont know who is going to kiss you when im gone to the best of this star studded celebration. New years resolution. Our fitness expert has your back. The best ways to get in shape and get your best body ever. Were breaki