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Some of your unwanted holiday gifts may end up at a bargain bin store like this one in Raleigh, North Carolina. Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi/NPR hide caption

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Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi/NPR

Some of your unwanted holiday gifts may end up at a bargain bin store like this one in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi/NPR

The pandemic has led to a huge rise in online shopping. And record spending from last year means record returns. But what happens to the items we send back is often a mystery.

NPR correspondent Alina Selyukh reports on the like hood of an unwanted holiday gift making it into another customers hands.

And Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi of NPR's Planet Money podcast visits a bargain bin store in North Carolina where dogged resellers rifle through mounds of unwanted items to find something they can turn for a profit.

Listen to the full Planet Money episode here.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

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This episode was produced by Lee Hale, Nick Fountain and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Fatma Tanis and Jess Jiang with help from Uri Berliner. Our executive producer is Cara Tallo.

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