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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

#121
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

well the thing is, I flew with ryanair multiple times and never had problems. well I had, but basically I was too stupid and made a small mistake inside my name and it costed me like 10€ for the call! (yeah they take like 2€ per minute for support calls) but well you get what you ask a cheap flight with exactly the details you booked. but you can fly tons of locations, even once that bigger airlines have cancelled long time ago because they aren't worth it.

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

#122

First of all, "130K" is a meaningless number except as a percentage of items sold/returned. Curiously, the article neglects to mention this. Plus, you need to compare that percentage with other retailers. Second, this happens with any business. For new products, it's stuff Amazon has determined simply isn't selling and is unprofitable to continue storing in the limited warehouse space. Better to chuck it and make spa…

> there isn't always a price point that is both low enough that people are willing to buy the cheaper returned item, but still high enough that it's profitable for Amazon

This doesn't seem to match what the article is listing:

> There's no rhyme or reason to what gets destroyed: Dyson fans, Hoovers, the occasional MacBook and iPad; the other day, 20,000 Covid (face) masks

Any MacBook or iPad will sell for more than the cost of shipping. Dyson fans will as well. There are other reasons it's not done.

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

#123

First of all, "130K" is a meaningless number except as a percentage of items sold/returned. Curiously, the article neglects to mention this. Plus, you need to compare that percentage with other retailers. Second, this happens with any business. For new products, it's stuff Amazon has determined simply isn't selling and is unprofitable to continue storing in the limited warehouse space. Better to chuck it and make spa…

> there isn't always a price point that is both low enough that people are willing to buy the cheaper returned item, but still high enough that it's profitable for Amazon This doesn't seem to match what the article is listing: > There's no rhyme or reason to what gets destroyed: Dyson fans, Hoovers, the occasional MacBook and iPad; the other day, 20,000 Covid (face) masks Any MacBook or iPad will sell for more than t…

The article is cherry-picking for sensationalism. Those aren't representative, obviously. And the "there's no rhyme or reason" is the author's (entirely unsupported) opinion, not a fact.

Amazon is a for-profit business. It's not intentionally dumping MacBooks it can resell profitably.

Obviously neither of us knows in this particular circumstance, but one would assume they were damaged enough to not be resellable, that a mistake was made somewhere, or a third-party seller using FBA requested them disposed of for some reason (e.g. an ancient used model there was no more demand for).

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

#124
post #61

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.

For 5 years now I've actually been receiving Amazon returns at my office for some reason, and only for Raspberry Pi sound card components. I've tried contacting Amazon every way, including emailing the personal address of Jeff's (which led me to priority support), but they still keep shipping me these returns.

I fail to see the problem here.

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Considering that you very clearly understood the intent from context, it seems rather petty to point this out in an otherwise completely unrelated discussion.

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

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there isn't always a price point that is both low enough that people are willing to buy the cheaper returned item, but still high enough that it's profitable for Amazon This doesn't seem to match what the article is listing: > There's no rhyme or reason to what gets destroyed: Dyson fans, Hoovers, the occasional MacBook and iPad; the other day, 20,000 Covid (face) masks Any MacBook or iPad will sell for more than t…

The article is cherry-picking for sensationalism. Those aren't representative, obviously . And the "there's no rhyme or reason" is the author's (entirely unsupported) opinion, not a fact. Amazon is a for-profit business. It's not intentionally dumping MacBooks it can resell profitably. Obviously neither of us knows in this particular circumstance, but one would assume they were damaged enough to not be resellable, th…

It's not that's obvious to be honest. We already know that expensive brands will destroy their stock rather than lower prices / allow donations.

This happens with electronics (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2019/06/04/france-ba...), clothes (https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5bad1ef2e4b09d41eb9f7bb0), food (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-dest...), etc.

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is cherry-picking for sensationalism. Those aren't representative, obviously . And the "there's no rhyme or reason" is the author's (entirely unsupported) opinion, not a fact. Amazon is a for-profit business. It's not intentionally dumping MacBooks it can resell profitably. Obviously neither of us knows in this particular circumstance, but one would assume they were damaged enough to not be resellable, th…

It's not that's obvious to be honest. We already know that expensive brands will destroy their stock rather than lower prices / allow donations. This happens with electronics ( https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2019/06/04/france-ba... ), clothes ( https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5bad1ef2e4b09d41eb9f7bb0 ), food ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-dest... ), etc.

Amazon isn't a luxury brand.

And if there are any luxury brands Amazon sells (are there even?) where the brands demanded Amazon return returned items to the brand for destruction... well then it's the brand that's responsible, not Amazon.

Again, Amazon's just out there to make money. It's not going to destroy swathes of merchandise it can easily otherwise make money off of. That kind of goes against the whole profit motive.

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

#128

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…

Did Nike address anything? I assumed everyone was still manufacturing in poorer countries due to more lax labor and environmental laws. They might run some ads how they changed suppliers or something, but people are not going to pay double or triple for clothing so a factory worker in Bangladesh can get a better quality of life at work. People will not even pay more so their neighbors and countryman can have a better…

They are still manufacturing in those poorer countries. But I believe they do take some effort now to inspect and vet places where their shoes are made and make sure that children aren't working there.

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

#130
post #20

This is not ideal, but par for the course in the CPG sector. You’d be shocked how much food your local grocery store throws out each week too. Also the quality of the reporting is very poor and mostly seems intent at just making Amazon look bad. How much do others destroy? It’s a lot. There’s no ability for the reader to understand if this is bad (relatively speaking) or not.

What if the article is written as follows: "Before Amazon came along, a store of its kind would routinely dispose of 1 million perfectly good products each year. Now thanks to a series of complicated quantum neural artificial inteligence robots, matching an army of bargain hunters with stock destined for landfill an 87% reduction in waste has been achieved this year alone. Thanks Jeff for saving the world, again!"
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