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Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

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Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#111

Post by RichEO »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #75
bdcravens wrote: post #24

A significant amount of items don't get destroyed however; many are sold on the liquidation market. https://www.liquidation.com/c/sourcedfromamazonliquidations

I've watched a couple of giant-box openings on youtube where people buy unsold/returned stuff (and feeling my soul draining through my eyeballs) and decided that the landfill is just exactly where most of this stuff needs to go. Perhaps that can be the model of the New Economy. All of the 'knowledge workers' can design/manage surveillance and all of manufacturing can provide piles of things that go immediately to the…

Link?

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#112

Post by skybrian »

throwaaskjdfh wrote: post #106
skybrian wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be useful but it would probably require Amazon’s cooperation. I agree that it doesn’t mean the reporter did anything wrong to run the story with the info they could gather. Maybe someone from Amazon will explain in response to this story? But there is a mystery at the heart of this story. Amazon’s decisions seem hard to explain. We should let it remain a mystery until we learn more, without either assuming t…

> Amazon’s decisions seem hard to explain. We should let it remain a mystery This gets back to what I disagree with. If Amazon's decisions seem hard to explain, the decisions should be brought to the public's attention and Amazon should explain them. There is no reason for it to remain a mystery. And they'll never explain it unless there is a price to be paid for not explaining, e.g. being perceived as wasteful.

Acknowledging a mystery doesn’t mean you don’t try to solve it. But you are making an assumption of political power we don’t have, as a small number of people commenting on Hacker News.

We can hope this story blows up enough that someone else, perhaps at Amazon, reveals some interesting information. But we’re not in control of whether that happens.

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#113

Post by dntrkv »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #65
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #27

The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week? What's the reason for these items being marked for destruction? What percentage of the products are these; how many items go through the warehouse per week that are not destroyed? I expect these are products returned with defects, that have been issued recalls…

> Economics are immune to guilt ... Regardless of the solution, moralizing is ineffective. I'm just gonna quickly point out: This is simply not true and I'm surprised you'd make the claim. PR is a huge deal for most companies, and public shaming through press coverage is a very effective way to raise awareness of issues and push for change. Nike, for example, didn't address issues of sweatshop labour out of the goodn…

From what I've seen, bad PR forces a company to make some bullshit changes that rarely, if ever, address the actual issue.

"Due to the allegations of sexual misconduct, we have forced everyone in the company to go through mandatory training"

"Sorry for polluting the river, we've donated a fraction of our annual profits to a non-profit and we'll do a half-assed job of cleaning up the mess even though the damage has already been done"

"In response to the recent report of terrible worker conditions, we are making changes at these locations to offer mental health services and an additional day off each year, we will continue to evaluate the needs of the employees and make changes where necessary"

People get outraged, they see an apology and some half-assed attempt to put the issue to rest and then people forget about it.

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#114

Post by dntrkv »

throwaaskjdfh wrote: post #63
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #27

The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week? What's the reason for these items being marked for destruction? What percentage of the products are these; how many items go through the warehouse per week that are not destroyed? I expect these are products returned with defects, that have been issued recalls…

> The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. I disagree with this, or at least the implication that there should have been more information gathered before publication. If the data is surprising against a common-sense set of expectations, it's Amazon's burden to provide a context for interpretation where the surprising information makes sense, not the report. Assuming the report's…

> reporting accurate facts and leaving "contextualization" to someone else is good journalism

How is that good journalism? If you're writing a piece about something that you feel people should be outraged about, you need to provide context. Otherwise, any number will seem absurd when talking about operations at an industrial scale. People have zero grasp of how much garbage and waste is created. Providing that context is key to the story.

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#115

Post by kingsuper20 »

RichEO wrote: post #111
kingsuper20 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched a couple of giant-box openings on youtube where people buy unsold/returned stuff (and feeling my soul draining through my eyeballs) and decided that the landfill is just exactly where most of this stuff needs to go. Perhaps that can be the model of the New Economy. All of the 'knowledge workers' can design/manage surveillance and all of manufacturing can provide piles of things that go immediately to the…

Link?

for returns unboxing? first one on a youtube search. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fDMcWYg2wU

surveillance economy? www.google.com

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#116

Post by TylerE »

fallinghawks wrote: post #88
TylerE wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about infection? There many transmissible diseases amongst animal species.

Some items were new in box and sealed. It's the same situation as Amazon, except Amazon is at a vastly larger scale. The manufacturer isn't going to repair it and doesn't want it back.

How do you really verify that though? Many types of seal are pretty easy to fake, or at least replace with something that will LOOK factory to someone that doesn't see the same packaging repeatedly.

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#117

Post by baybal2 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #27

The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week? What's the reason for these items being marked for destruction? What percentage of the products are these; how many items go through the warehouse per week that are not destroyed? I expect these are products returned with defects, that have been issued recalls…

> The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week?

Enormous amounts of all, and everything. I worked for most of my life in the cheaper side of electronics industry.

Brands themselves often destroy huge amount of unsold stock.

Apple famously quietly buys their iStuff from industrial refurbishers for destruction, to reduce the number of second hand iphones going around, and intentionally made engineering choices to make refurbishing very hard before.

"Luxury" brands often mandate their retailer to always destroy unsold stock, and set goals like "no more discount for you if you let stock to hang on the shelves longer than 3 months"

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#118

Post by baybal2 »

xibalba wrote: post #79
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #27

The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week? What's the reason for these items being marked for destruction? What percentage of the products are these; how many items go through the warehouse per week that are not destroyed? I expect these are products returned with defects, that have been issued recalls…

Yes. There may be a portion of these items that is excess or obsolete and cannot be otherwise disposed of. There are accounting rules (which are both reasonable and justified) which force companies to write down this kind of inventory (i.e. it hits the P&L). Additionally, there are real costs associated with keeping these items in the warehouse which justify their disposal. I once worked on an E&O project at a large…

Garments are sold at astronomical markups in the West.

So they are considered perishable almost like food if not sold in season.

The new wave of brands embracing this make near no money on liquidation sales, so they don't even try.

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#119

Post by cheradenine_uk »

BobbyJo wrote: post #96
CarelessExpert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economics are immune to guilt ... Regardless of the solution, moralizing is ineffective. I'm just gonna quickly point out: This is simply not true and I'm surprised you'd make the claim. PR is a huge deal for most companies, and public shaming through press coverage is a very effective way to raise awareness of issues and push for change. Nike, for example, didn't address issues of sweatshop labour out of the goodn…

Those are exceptions, not the rule. PR's importance is very variable. Nike, as a luxury brand, has to care what people think about it. People seeing it as a 'good' brand is the core of their business. This is simply not true for 99% of companies. Most companies on the planet could get all the bad PR in the world, and even if, by some miracle, you remembered their name, you wouldn't even know when you buying their pro…

Quite.

Case in point: Budget Airlines.

Ryanair does everything short of punch you in the face. O'Leary literally laughs at his own customers.

And he can. Because what they going to do?

Re: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses

#120

Post by Normille »

agotterer wrote: post #102
jschwartzi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Amazon definitely destroys most returns. I was informed that anything you can take to a Kohl’s is destroyed after return. That’s why sometimes it’s not available as an option.

I’m pretty sure I just saved a previously returned item from this fate. I bought something just yesterday from Amazon labeled as “new, but with a damaged box”. The item was heavily discounted, I think around 40% off. I could care less what the box looks like or if the individual parts aren’t wrapped perfectly if the item is in good working condition.

  >I could care less
You COULDN'T care less.

Why can so many otherwise seemingly intelligent Americans not grasp this simple grammatical concept?

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