What Happens to All the Items We Buy Online and Return....

[Blansky]

"The annual retail value of returned goods in the U.S. is said to be approaching a trillion dollars."


I recently bought a night table that had a scratch on top. The company said to keep it and sent me another one.

Amazon returns can now just be taken to Whole Foods and UPS where they are ground up and used as cat food......just kidding.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...f-free-returns

[enjoythemusic]

I send ours to Chewbacca.

[Tri-Tip]

I entered a return for a novelty T-Shirt from Amazon and they credited me and told me to just keep it.

[77T]

At Amazon, if it has resale value (ex Clothing) and is worth the cost of ship back and warehousing costs, it goes into the system as “Used, good condition”.


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[Kowaco]

Tells me there is a huge mark up


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[AzPaul]

These 'faulty' products are sent out that way intentionally, and when you keep them, the puppet masters now have one of their data collection devices in your home. To you, it may seem like a harmless, ill-fitting t-shirt, but it's actually fitted with intelligence gathering technology that most people don't even realize exists. So, by telling people to 'just keep it', they turn the person's own greed against them, knowing their desire to keep something for nothing, all but guarantees the person will hang on to it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to run to the store to get some more foil.

[Tricolore66]

I ordered a $1,000+ Kohler medicine cabinet and one of the mirrors was cracked, and they told me to keep it and sent another. My contractor donated it to some association that takes surplus building materials to use for habitat for humanity homes.

[JasoninDenver]

Great article!

I never take advantage of a return system to use something once. Just a matter of karma for me but not, apparently, for millions of Americans.

[fmc000]

I buy returned goos from Amazon all the time, recently my "new" laptop and monitor for example. Absolute near-perfect condition for less than half the price, a real no-brainer.

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by Tri-Tip

I entered a return for a novelty T-Shirt from Amazon and they credited me and told me to just keep it.

Too funny, the exact same here

[m j b]

So.... many years ago, a friend of mine went to work for a company that did reverse distribution. They basically took things that could not be thrown away, like expired pharmaceuticals, or things that were returned but could not go back through normal retail channels. All of this stuff they either destroyed or resold, respectively.

I thought it was an interesting business model. Of course, now, they're out of business, but there are surely other companies out there that do similar things.

Now, me personally, I never return anything that I've actually used, that's just not right, it's immoral and no one should pay for my mistake. But I will admit to often returning things that are not as described or do not meet my quality requirements.