[momzer]

Regarding the premise: Liberal return policies used to be rare in the middle of the 20th century—something that a few smaller retailers offered as a perk.

I'm curious how much this applies say pre-WWII era (before the majority of goods were produced far from their sale). Maybe I've got some Hollywood-influenced idea of what life was like, but I would think a small town would have some sort of a general store where refunds would be no big deal (within reason). This would probably be less of an imposition when the store owner knew the majority of the customers. Even the big-city department stores would probably take back merchandise, since there wasn't exactly any concept of opening a shrinkwrap or a restocking fee. Unless you had something like a tailored dress, I don't see why a late 19th/early 20th century American store wouldn't have a liberal return policy.

Also, in terms of shipping returned items, I believe that the "money back guarantee" was a major selling point of catalog-based retailers such as Sears Roebuck, specifically to compete with local department stores.

Someone with actual historical knowledge should weigh in, but it seems to me like the mid-20th century was the first cultural shift in return policies, and the present decade is a shift in the other direction.