Target introduced its Cat & Jack line in 2016 and quickly reached $2 billion in annual sales.
Mary Meisenzahl/Insider
Target offers one-year returns on owned-brand items, including the Cat & Jack children’s clothing line.
Some parents use the policy to get cash back or all-new outfits when their kids outgrow their clothes.
While some retailers are introducing limits on returns, Target is trying to make the process even easier.
Little kids grow fast, and the cost of keeping them well-dressed can add up quickly.
To save money, some parents are taking advantage of retail’s apparent version of the infinite money glitch.
“Attention all moms,” Target shopper Jazmine Valdivia said in a video posted last summer on TikTok. “If you guys buy Cat & Jack for your kids, there is a one-year warranty that Cat & Jack offers if your kid outgrows the clothes, whether it’s stained, ripped, whatever it is, they’ll refund you.”
In the video, which has racked up nearly 1.2 million views, 85,000 likes, and 26,000 shares, Valdivia shows receipts from returning a large bag of clothing used by her three children for a combined total of $537.80.
TikTok
“Didn’t spend a single dollar for back to school clothes,” she added in an overlay.
Valdivia declined Insider’s request for an interview.
Other TikTok users have uploaded similar — albeit smaller — refund journeys, in which they test out the company’s policy for themselves.
“Reason number 16293836286 why we love Target!” user JMS_Steph captioned on a video showing return receipts worth $164.21.
Target
While some videos and comments suggest the company is cracking down on the practice, Target’s policy for Cat & Jack products remains the same as it is for all of its more than 45 private label brands, and workers tell Insider they still regularly process returns on large batches of used children’s clothing.
The employees requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Some returns are unwashed or in ‘terrible condition’
Target’s return policy states: “If you’re not satisfied with any Target Owned Brand item, return it within one year with a receipt for an exchange or a refund.” A Target spokesperson declined to comment on the TikTok trend directly, but said the return policy reflects the company’s confidence in the value of its private label offerings.
A worker in Illinois said the largest receipt she processed was about $300. “Absolutely used and in terrible condition.”
A lot of the clothing is returned without being washed, she added, and those products get tossed straight into the trash.
A worker in California said she has seen the trend increasing this year as parents return for another year, and their friends decide to try it for the first time.
The largest receipt she processed was about $417 — higher than normal because it included a lot of shoes. The thing that bothered her wasn’t the monetary value, she said, it was the slow process of manually typing in item codes on the computer. Even working quickly, the return took nearly 20 minutes to complete.
Returns without proof of purchase are capped at $100 per year per customer, but items with a receipt or purchased with a Target Circle membership are basically unrestricted.
TikTok
Still, the California worker says many people are a bit disappointed by the value of their returns, which tend to be smaller than they expect due to discounts on the actual prices they paid in the first place.
At a time when other retailers are taking steps to slow down the returns process, Target is actively seeking to make it easier to bring stuff back to its stores with this year’s rollout of drive up returns.
Meanwhile, the total value of all Cat & Jack returns is almost certainly a small percentage of total revenue generated by the brand, which pulls in more than $2 billion per year for the Bullseye.
Besides, what do many shoppers do right after returning a batch of Cat & Jack? Buy more Cat & Jack.