Kohl's will return your Amazon order for you

Starting this July, Amazon shoppers won't have to go to the post office to return items they bought from the online retailer. Instead, they can head to a nearby Kohl's store.

Amazon and Kohl's announced a new partnership this week that gives shoppers the option of having Kohl's employees handle their Amazon returns — no postage or packaging required. Florida stores will be among the more than 1,150 Kohl's locations to begin the new program.

"This unique partnership combines Kohl's strong nationwide store footprint and omnichannel capabilities with Amazon's reach and customer loyalty," Kohl's CEO Michelle Gass said in a statement. "This new service is another example of how Kohl's is delivering innovation to drive traffic to our stores and bring more relevance to our customers."

Kohl's will package and label the items eligible for return and send them to an Amazon center. Shoppers still have the option of returning items through the postal service.

In 2017, Amazon and Kohl's started testing the return partnership in 100 stores in Los Angeles, Chicago and Milwaukee. Nearly all of Chicago's stores were used in the pilot program, so market analysts Earnest Research compared Chicago's stats to the rest of the country without the program earlier this month.

Earnest reported that not only did Amazon returns increase, but Kohl's was gaining new customers. While most of the rest of the country had only a 1 percent increase in first-time Kohl's shoppers, Chicago stores had a 9 percent increase.

Kohl's said it also will expand selling Amazon electronics, such as the Echo Dot, to 200 of its locations. It was not immediately clear if any of them are in Florida.

Contact Sara DiNatale at sdinatale@tampabay.com. Follow @sara_dinatale.