Many Amazon Returns Are Just Destroyed or Sent to Landfills (www.cbc.ca) 76
What happens when we return items to Amazon? "Perfectly good items are being liquidated by the truckload — and even destroyed or sent to landfill," according to Marketplace, an investigative consumer program on Canada's public TV:
Experts say hundreds of thousands of returns don't end up back on the e-commerce giant's website for resale, as customers might think. Marketplace journalists posing as potential new clients went undercover for a tour at a Toronto e-waste recycling and product destruction facility with hidden cameras. During that meeting, a representative revealed they get "tons and tons of Amazon returns," and that every week their facility breaks apart and shreds at least one tractor-trailer load of Amazon returns, sometimes even up to three to five truckloads...
To further investigate where all those online returns end up, Marketplace purchased a dozen products off Amazon's website — a faux leather backpack, overalls, a printer, coffee maker, a small tent, children's toys and a few other household items — and sent each back to Amazon just as they were received but with a GPS tracker hidden inside... Of the 12 items returned, it appears only four were resold by Amazon to new customers at the time this story was published. Months on from the investigation, some returns were still in Amazon warehouses or in transit, while a few travelled to some unexpected destinations, including a backpack that Amazon sent to landfill...
Marketplace asked Amazon what percentage of its returns are sent to landfill, recycling or for destruction. The company wouldn't answer. A television investigation in France exposed that hundreds of thousands of products — both returns and overstock — are being thrown out by Amazon. As a result of public outcry, a new French anti-waste law passed earlier this year will force all retailers including e-giants like Amazon to recycle or donate all returned or unused merchandise. Shortly after the show aired in 2019, Amazon also introduced a new program in the U.S. and U.K. known as Fulfillment by Amazon Donations, which Amazon says will help sellers send returns directly to charities instead of disposing of them. No such program exists in Canada.
To further investigate where all those online returns end up, Marketplace purchased a dozen products off Amazon's website — a faux leather backpack, overalls, a printer, coffee maker, a small tent, children's toys and a few other household items — and sent each back to Amazon just as they were received but with a GPS tracker hidden inside... Of the 12 items returned, it appears only four were resold by Amazon to new customers at the time this story was published. Months on from the investigation, some returns were still in Amazon warehouses or in transit, while a few travelled to some unexpected destinations, including a backpack that Amazon sent to landfill...
Marketplace asked Amazon what percentage of its returns are sent to landfill, recycling or for destruction. The company wouldn't answer. A television investigation in France exposed that hundreds of thousands of products — both returns and overstock — are being thrown out by Amazon. As a result of public outcry, a new French anti-waste law passed earlier this year will force all retailers including e-giants like Amazon to recycle or donate all returned or unused merchandise. Shortly after the show aired in 2019, Amazon also introduced a new program in the U.S. and U.K. known as Fulfillment by Amazon Donations, which Amazon says will help sellers send returns directly to charities instead of disposing of them. No such program exists in Canada.
Capitalism at its finest (Score:2, Troll)
Just goes to show you how what Amazon's goods are really worth.
Re:Capitalism at its finest (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sometimes that works. There are other factors though. Designer clothing, for example - the company behind a respected brand knows that exclusivity is essential, so they can't allow their product to ever be sold at a discount, and will enter into agreements with retailers to that effect: If you want to sell their product, you can only sell at the manufacturer-set price. No discounts. Not even for returns.
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I think that is a desirable result. The complaint is that it is not being done and instead the merchandise is being scrapped, and the reason for doing so is so Amazon does not have to compete with cheap resale items.
That being said, it seems from the article that most returned items are resold, I actually expected far more to be scrapped than their GPS detected.
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I blame a lot of this on customer behavior. Some are so addicted to the easy of buying stuff, never having to go out and visit an actual store and support the local economy, that they will buy 5 sets of clothes, try them on, then return them. I've had others tell me to not worry, just buy the item without researching because I can always return it later. It just feels to amazingly short sighted and selfish.
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I blame a lot of this on customer behavior. Some are so addicted to the easy of buying stuff, never having to go out and visit an actual store and support the local economy, that they will buy 5 sets of clothes, try them on, then return them. I've had others tell me to not worry, just buy the item without researching because I can always return it later. It just feels to amazingly short sighted and selfish.
That sorta depends.
If one is under the impression that things that get returned ultimately get resold, then that's not really selfish - the item would ultimately end up being used.
This is the case in retail all the time. While there used to be more of them, there are stores that buy excess merchandise from other retailers and sell it at a discount off-season. Great - stuff is getting used, and if you don't mind getting a BBQ grill in mid-September, it works out for everyone.
The uniqueness here - and it's no
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Not capitalism, consumerism.
It just feels to amazingly short sighted and selfish.
If we are ever going to do anything useful about the environment, global climate change, and so on, this "throw away" culture must end. In many respects, people don't realise the full consequences of their actions, or maybe they just don't care.
From my point of view, it seems quite possible to enjoy a comfortable life, or indeed a prosperous one, without the need to consume resources at such a frantic rate.
The capitalist aspect to this is that it is in the interests of producers
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I see this from government too. Economic advisers wringing their hands that citizens are being iresponsible by saving money for a rainy day instead of buying stuff!
Capitalism at its finest (Score:1)
Most companies put returns back on the shelves. I would buy clothes from retail shops to show off to my wife, if she doesn't approve I return them, and they resell them. That's why they have to be in unworn condition with tags on. Quite harmless.
No reason consumers shouldn't expect the same from online retailer. If the retailer doesn't want to invest in hiring people to do that, then good on CBC for telling consumers. Now we can demand Amazon to change, or boycott the company.
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What do they think happens at a normal store? The labour cost to verify a product has all the parts, isn't actually damaged, is functional, and doesn't have some insect infestation (bedbugs, lice, roaches) from an uncontrolled space far exceeds the value of most items. Even then, they'd have to sell at open box prices which means no profits, just the loss due to labour costs.
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"What do they think happens at a normal store? "
BIG SALE!
Everything goes! AS IS! NO GUARANTEE! NO RETURNS!
cash only.
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Nope, my wife spent 20+ years at Target, the majority of returns, especially stuff that doesn't have labels, goes to the compactor.
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That's because they have 500 lawyers.
The question was about "a normal store" you know, with zero lawyers, not even Saul Goodman.
Re: Capitalism at its finest (Score:1)
That's incorrect. Most retailers have staff close to minimum wage, as do Amazon warehouses. Item inspection takes 30 seconds, then in can go back into regular stocking rotation. Many items, like clothing, don't need to be sold open box.
So unless the item costs 50 cents, it's still beneficial to resell it.
But even if it does need to be sold open box, still better than shredding.
And the reason they would rather shred than donate is because they don't rent to lose a potential sale. Because fuck poor people, ri
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Sometimes the high end fashion items are intentionally destroyed because the brand does not want to see anyone have the items for free or at a discount, no bums on the street are allowed to wear Prada. A capitalist ideal!
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> Just goes to show you how what Amazon's goods are really worth.
This is why economics should be mandatory in schools.
What capitalism does is minimize costs. It costs money to process returns because nobody wants to (nor should they work for free).
So if a toaster is $8, and that represents $2 in profit, but it costs $4 in labor to evaluate and relist a used item for sale, then it's more cost effective to discard the toaster than to sell it used.
What they could do is play the odds and sell the toaster fo
Re: Capitalism at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
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What capitalism does is to externalize cost. As long as it's cheaper to pollute than to take care of your trash, capitalism encourages the former. It lacks the feedback mechanisms necessary to rein in its own built-in destructiveness (or rather, that of humans, but since the OS for capitalism is humans, it amounts to the same thing).
Capitalism always acts to concentrate effort to where it achieves the most result. It is exceptionally efficient at it but this efficiency can have unwanted effects. Capitalism benefits us because it is the best system for baking increasing larger economic pies. Left to just making larger and larger pies for us to enjoy, however, can result in the kitchen being left in a mess.
In this Amazon example, Capitalism (people) is far more effective at creating new wealth than extracting value from trash. People con
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"Capitalism always acts to concentrate effort to where it achieves the most profit for capital owners .
FTFY
Re: Capitalism at its finest (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd note that 'cheaper to pollute' includes the cost of any fines times the chance of getting caught. If you can can save €1,000,000 (which you can) by only fitting an open-loop scrubber on your ship, and the fine for getting caught discharging toxic scrubber waste water in port is €50,000 (Which it is)... well, ships with open-loop scrubbers greatly outnumber those with closed-loop scrubbers.
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And that's the problem. Foist the cost on someone else. Dump the toxic waste in the river, grind up the surplus instead of donating to charities or giving to discount stores, and so forth. Yet often some companies do the right thing. It kind of depends upon the morality of those in charge maybe. I see many food companies, packing plants and the like, donate the food that has blemishes to local charities; I see stores that sell slightly irregular clothing; and so forth. Yet the companies with high end b
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Then there are the unintended consequences of the donating X to area Y. Area A has lots and lots of extra X. They donate X to area Y. Yay! The folks in area Y now have lots of cheap X and the folks in area A feel good. Except for the local industry in area Y that also produces X and now goes out of business and creates more joblessness. Replace X with clothes and Y with developing country. Yes, this happens.
Thanks for mentioning Amazon Warehouse (Score:2)
Thanks for mentioning Amazon Warehouse.
I hadn't seen it before. There are some items I'll probably look for on there, to get a better deal.
https://www.amazon.com/Warehou... [amazon.com]
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No what is hoped is they would put the returned toaster on the Amazon Warehouse (which you even mentioned) and sell it for $4, not throw it away because that might cut into $8 toaster purchases.
Better making my point (Score:2)
I thought my one line would speak for itself, but given the direction this conversation took, I guess it needs clarification.
One of the things I miss about the "olden days" was when manufacturers made items designed to last. My dad has his dad's rucksack, zippo, rifles, pocketwatch, and many other items that are still in good shape. Even when they get out of shape, a little repair work goes a long way to make it serviceable again. Today's manufacturing engineers goods to be disposable, because capitalism
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One of the many causes of the great depression, and certainly not the primary cause, was the flood of consumer goods had reached a saturation point. A whole array of new products for the well off home hit the market. They were extremely well made and not cheap. The people working in the factories making these products could not afford them. So when all the well off people got their fancy new electric toaster built to last a life-time, that was it. Factories had sprung up to fulfill the demand for those
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we stopped teaching basic maintenance skills in schools
When did that happen? Not when did they stopped teaching basic maintenance, but when the hell did they ever teach it to start with? And why? At least in the US that's always been something you learned (or didn't learn) from your parents.
Re: Capitalism at its finest (Score:1)
We don't teach basic maintenance because things are built specifically to be disposable. Again, corporations would rather items be destroyed so they can make another sale than be environmentally conscious.
Read up on apple and John Deere vs the right to repair movement.
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faux leather backpack, overalls, a printer, coffee maker, a small tent, children's toys and a few other household items — and sent each back to Amazon just as they were received but with a GPS tracker hidden inside
I was wondering why my 'Faux Leather Backpack' had a GPS tracker hidden inside it!
... the mystery is finally solved.
It's about the reviews (Score:3)
I sell on FBA, and there is one reason I explicitly opt out of Amazon's program for repackaging/refurbishing returned items. Amazon's workers don't know my product, so I can't 100% trust them to be able to tell if some component is missing in a returned product. If they don't catch it, the next customer does, and that will certainly result in a one star review. You need 6 five star reviews to offset a single one star review, and because the revenue from a 4.2 rated product can be tens of thousands of dollar
My local food bank gets truckloads of returns (Score:5, Interesting)
My local food bank gets truckloads of returns from Amazon.
It may be though that some categories of returns are considered unsuitable for donation. The company may also be concerned these donations may just become some aftermarket competition, with buyers having expectations on Amazon or the manufacturer.
Re:My local food bank gets truckloads of returns (Score:5, Interesting)
There are return scams, especially with electronics, when the scammer buys defective returned items -- then orders a new item -- switches the items in the packaging -- then returns the defective one for a refund. Now they have a brand new item to resell and the same defective item is cycled over and over in the return process.
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I can imagine something similar being used to launder counterfeit goods. Buy item, return fake. Though only worth doing if your fakes are substandard - a good fake is indistinguishable from the brand product.
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Better to just slap your own brand on your "fakes", and sell them straight up. This might even scale.
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I returned a TV to Target a while back. Someone (I guess a manager) quietly told the person taking it to be sure he scanned everything because they had an issue earlier that day. Good thing I was not being dishonest.
I've also heard of people abusing warranties. Many types of things don't get repaired, they just get replaced and the person ends up with a newer, better model because the older one is no longer made.
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It may also just be that their GPS trackers were removed from the other products when they were inspected, or they were found to have some problem, like a case that was forced open already, or some sort of foreign hard object inside something that should be soft. They wouldn't care to check if it is a lump of glue or if somebody planted a tracking device; they wouldn't even be thinking about the latter, they'd just toss it as being different than the others in the same bin.
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For instance, under the guise of bedbugs, local governments have made it impossible to donate mattresses, protecting the businesses that sell mattresses and adding to our landfill. Online mattress retailers could provide beds for many, supply all homeless shelters, but instead has to send them to the landfill all
WalMart seems to be different. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not what I saw at WalMart, though. Returns are collected and catalogued. Food stuffs are mostly thrown out. A small percentage is given to food banks - cans and boxed foods. Critter foods are donated to the local shelters. And other stuff is palleted and sent back to a central warehouse. A lot of it is sold by the pallet to resellers. I know a couple of them locally. They put the stuff on fleabay, et.al. Bicycles, though, are crushed and forgotten...
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You don't describe seeing something different, you describe the same thing, you just categorize crates of stuff that you don't know what happened to it as having had something happen to it. But all you saw was it go onto a truck and drive away from you, and goes somewhere.
It does sound like did see what happened to some bicycles. Notice, it is the stuff that was destroyed in front of you that you know what happened to it; the stuff that was crated and moved, you don't know. It may have also been destroyed.
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One of those warehouses is 50 miles away. 2 folks I know bid on the pallets and then sell, fix and sell, or trash what's on them. One quit her day job to do this full time. They're both doing quite well.
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you just categorize crates of stuff that you don't know what happened to it as having had something happen to it.
Not just Amazon (Score:4, Insightful)
These types of articles tend to hate specifically on Amazon, yet Amazon is probably less "evil" than many others.
I bought a number of items on Ebay over the years, where seller advertises "free returns". When item did not work out, I set up a return, at which point a seller would begin sending me messages offering to keep an item for an ever increasing discount. Normally, I would insist on a refund, and then seller would simply provide a refund and not ask for an item back (as if they did, they would also have to pay for return shipping).
These sellers are almost invariably abroad (China) and their orders are fulfilled from a warehouse in the US, so they have no meaningful return processing strategy. I guess they advertise free returns to make buyers feel more confident in buying online (as otherwise many, including myself, would probably not risk ordering)
In my case, after I get a refund, I normally place the item "for free" on Craigslist - works every time, it's amazing how many people will come get "free stuff".
I wish that the "give away for free" process was made easier, and may be supported directly through the very platforms that items are ordered through.
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Could you please tell that to Amazon - I'll take a gift card :)
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I dunno. Amazon seems to greatly encourage the impulse buy and will promote how easy it is to return stuff. Dress doesn't fit? Return it so it can be shredded and you don't even need to step outside the house to drop it in the Goodwill bin.
US warehouse is unlikely (Score:2)
Postage is cheaper from China than from a nearby warehouse. The odd rules of international mail.
Experts say (Score:1)
"Experts say."
"Marketplace 'journalists'"
In all likelihood, the "study" is bogus and doesn't represent anything that is statistically meaningful.
Re:Experts say (Score:4, Informative)
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In all likelihood you're no stranger to confusing your stupidity for skepticism.
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In all likelihood... is bogus ... statistically meaningful.
Uhm, no. That isn't how math works.
That isn't what a "statistic" is.
Meaningful doesn't measure the strength of your feefies.
Big deal (Score:2)
Last year? (Score:3)
Or maybe annually?
Isn't this a perennial story on /.?
Amazon WAREHOUSE (Score:3)
Perhaps not in Canada (or smaller markets), but in the US, many used returns go to Amazon Warehouse and are listed and can be repurchased at a discount. I've order many items from them. Works best with AzPrime to save shipping.
Why (Score:2)
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the landfill is the most environmental option (Score:2)
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That's only when you're evil and think only of profits. There are many companies that do donate to charities. The cost should not be a factor here, because the system is set up to encourage ignoring the costs and to pass them on to other people instead. This doesn't mean you have to work that way, there are options other than dumping stuff in the garbage. But big companies won't notice until they smell the stink from annoyed customers who demand that stop being so selfish.
And much of the fault comes wit
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I would be prepared to pay to keep stuff out of landfill if possible. The preferred option is second hand goods. This is particularly applicable to items that were unwanted for some reason. Sorting, testing, and repackaging has some costs, but these would be worth paying, I think. I am not sure where the funds would come from, if not covered by the selling price of the second-hand item.
As someone else has pointed out in this thread, the problem is externalities, where a producer of goods does to pay all of
If you want to play the game... (Score:3)
I bought a phone on ebay that did sort of work, but the reception was so weak it wouldn't work in my office. I spent hours experimenting with signal strength apps and so forth - after all, it worked, sort of, and who's to say a different one of the same model would work better?
Finally asked to exchange it but the seller wanted me to take it somewhere local for repair and then they'd repay me for the cost. Ha! It took some back and forth but I finally got my money back, bought the same model of phone from somebody else, and it works great.
Here's the thing though, the seller of that faulty phone has no way to know or check whether there's anything wrong with it! They're probably in some big city where the signal is strong and it works fine. I wonder if they sold it again...
Amazon, Bezos == CANCEROUS (Score:2)
Want them to be more conscientious? (Score:3)
Don't allow them (or any retailer) to write this off their taxes as losses.
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You do realize that removing a tax break for these types of losses would just drive retailers to a "no refunds" policy on purchases?
And when that becomes the new normal, a whole lot of people are just going to begin trying really hard to resell their defective goods as working products, to offload their problems onto someone else.
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You do realize that removing a tax break for these types of losses would just drive retailers to a "no refunds" policy on purchases?
And when that becomes the new normal, a whole lot of people are just going to begin trying really hard to resell their defective goods as working products, to offload their problems onto someone else.
No, it would just end no arbitrary refunds on purchases. I can live with that.
Sometimes you don't have to return (Score:2)
I bought an Amazon Basics mouse, and the bottom wasn't even completely flat. Very weird. Anyway, when I did the return, they just told me to keep it, and refunded my money. I suppose if they did the same with higher priced items, people would catch on and game them.
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I suppose if they did the same with higher priced items, people would catch on and game them.
Yep. They've done tests on this. People will always try to scam the seller and get the item for free. This is why Amazon basically makes you return everything.
We have these Bin stores everywhere in Tennessee (Score:1)