A friend of mine owns a Radio Shack dealer store, and he runs into this all the time. His store looks like a company store, which they strongly encourage, except for a few specialty items he stocks that he knows will sell.

The problem (worst at Christmas) comes when people buy something at another (usually a mall store) then bring it back to his store for a refund. This puts him between a rock and a hard place, especially if it's an expensive low margin item or something he does not regularly stock.

If he gives the money back, the BEST he can hope for is to resell it at the same price, so it only costs him the time he spent and the carrying cost to hold the item until it's sold.

However, Murphy's law usually kicks in, and, as soon as he takes back an expensive item (dvd recorder, etc) you can bet it will go on sale for at least 25 percent off. So now he can either hold that item back until it goes off sale, or he can sell it and lose 25 percent.

Of course he has several large signs explaining this, but we all know how that works out....