Amazon is slowly growing its fleet of stores - but you can't return all online purchases there

Amazon

You can make purchases at Amazon's stores - just don't think about returning an order from Amazon.com.

• Amazon operates more than 20 stores under the Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star name.
• These stores accept returns - but only for purchases that were made at the actual store.
• Purchases from Amazon.com must be sent back to Amazon through the mail or dropped off at places like Hub Lockers or Kohl's stores.
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Amazon has been slowly growing its fleet of Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star stores - but they're still designed primarily as a place for purchasing and browsing.

While most stores with both an online and physical presence - like Target, Walmart, and mall-based stores - will accept online order returns in their stores, Amazon takes a more streamlined approach.

The 19 Books and three 4-star stores will accept customer returns, but only for items actually purchased at each store. Amazon Go's locations, of course, don't even have cashiers, so forget about those.

"You can return most items purchased at Amazon Books for a full refund within 30 days of purchase," the Amazon.com help page says. "Purchases made on Amazon.com cannot be returned to the Amazon Books stores."

The 4-star help page says the exact same thing.

Read more: You can now return Amazon orders for free at all Kohl's stores - here's how it works

Taking into account the wide breadth of products available on Amazon.com, it does make some sense that its stores would not have a place to accept and store items before they're sent to the returns warehouse.

Instead, purchases from Amazon.com must be sent back to Amazon through the mail or dropped off at participating outlets.

With no physical outlets to accept returns, Amazon has been rolling out initiatives like Hub Lockers and partnerships with discount department stores like Kohl's to expand its ability to accept returns.