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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

#51

Post by endtime »

joosters wrote: post #46
xeromal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chill out! Wow. I think he's just asking as a baseline. You see reports that "Costco spills 1000 gallons a day of water" but if you don't have any reference point, how do you know if that's low, average, or high. lol

Walmart isn’t willingly going to publish reliable bad information about themselves, just like Amazon don’t. Discovering it will be a lot of effort, but the OP demands it!

Publishing relevant and hard to discover information is kind of the whole point of journalism...

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

#52

Post by jasode »

jschwartzi wrote: post #34
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…

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.

>No Amazon definitely destroys most returns. I was informed that anything you can take to a Kohl’s is destroyed after return.

I don't think the existence of a Kohl's dropoff option means Amazon destroys 51%+ of their returns. Examples of people buying pallets of Amazon returns that are not destroyed: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amazon+returns

Like many retailers, Amazon outsources many reverse logistics[1] operations. Some returned product is sold off. Some is destroyed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_logistics

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

#53

Post by SiempreViernes »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #35
byandyphillips wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a good argument that just because x industry does this that it's ok another y industry does it to justify it.

It's important to have the article properly framed, though. If you didn't organize and get rid of (sell or toss) unused things at your place, you're eventually going to end up under piles of garbage nobody wants unless you somehow anticipated all your own needs perfectly. At some point you buy something you thought you'd need that you didn't. The same goes with businesses trying to sell. The difference from cleaning…

There exists a second hand market online, Amazon just don't want to feed into it.

Probably the scarcity by waste leads to more profits than trying to recycle, as the environmental costs of waste aren't paid by Amazon.

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

#54

Post by RicoElectrico »

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…

Shh! You're destroying the narration! Who would otherwise find it shocking? /s

Media outlets suck at providing context to numbers. It's ironic they always measure every goddamn thing with football fields and olympic swimming pools, but can't be bothered with percentages.

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

#55

Post by crazygringo »

jschwartzi wrote: post #34
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…

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.

That's not true -- you were informed wrong, sorry.

Tons of items on Amazon list "Amazon Warehouse" as a cheaper buying option, which are literally the returned items they're reselling, with a listed condition determined from inspection. This includes items that were returned at Kohl's.

Amazon destroys some returns, but that happens after the inspection process, if they determine the specific item was damaged enough that it's not profitable to resell.

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

#56

Post by gruez »

silicon2401 wrote: post #26
ajross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ALL retailers destroy unsellable inventory. Items can be defective, counterfeit, damaged, under legal injunction like a trade dispute, incorrectly licensed, or just plain unwanted. If you trade in any item anywhere eventually you're going to end up with something in stock you can't sell. I mean, what do we want to happen? These things to sit idle forever in a warehouse taking up space?

Give them away for free. we should incentivize under-production, not over-production. charge more for waste disposal

>Give them away for free. we should incentivize under-production, not over-production

...and that's how you end up with shortages.

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

#57

Post by libertine »

croon wrote: post #30
libertine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be about inventory space, shipping costs, returns, and stranded inventory. Amazon has been fiddling with sellers inventory space on Amazon fulfillment centers for some years, and they keep reducing it, and penalizing sellers who don't sell enough (either by increasing their inventory fees, or reducing their storage volume). For some sellers destroying inventory is probably the best option. Some product…

What's stopping them from doing a lot auction (a la storage wars). Is it brand damage to whatever products are in it? I mean, the naive idealist in me just want stuff that has already been produced to at least get used for a bit, even if it ends up being sold on ebay or craigslist.

Amazon does sell/auction pallets of products, but it's probably their own inventory (not sure).

So most likely they won't do it for legal/logistical reasons.

Remember that Amazon doesn't move a finger if you don't pay them.

I don't see people paying amazon to have their products auctioned and amazon profiting from it. Neither I see how Amazon would split the bid between sellers. Who would be liable for that item?

You're not naive, you have products being mande and shipped from China to be destroyed in Amazon Fulfillment Centers. It's absurd.

But I guess it's the price of globalization.

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

#58

Post by londons_explore »

crazygringo wrote: post #43

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…

> 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 to continuing stocking

I don't think this is how the prices on Amazon Warehouse are set... I suspect Amazon or Amazons third party sellers consider most warehouse sales to be a lost sale of the 'new' item. That means it's better to destroy the item than sell it at a discount greater than the production cost of a new item.

Thats why you rarely see discounts >30% in amazon warehouse, despite the fact any price over a few dollars probably pays for the storage and shipping costs.

Remember destroying items costs money - in many countries there is a tax on landfill, which for many items can work out about the same cost as shipping it to someone at amazons scale.

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

#60

Post by bombcar »

londons_explore wrote: post #50
bombcar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon Warehouse attempts to get some value out of things that are easy enough or worth it to do a cursory inspection - but if you go to return some small value items Amazon tells you to just keep it/throw it away. The amount of retail "wastage" that occurs would be surprising to many - one you may have seen is the "book without cover has been reported destroyed" you sometimes see - it's not worth it for publishers t…

It's curious to me that used items in amazon Warehouse sell for very high prices... For example, I randomly picked a 24V power supply: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/dp/B07P4N3H1F/ Cost: GBP 16.99, non-new + GBP 4.99 shipping. Yet From ebay an equivilent item, inc shipping, is [1] costing GBP 4.43 (brand new). From Aliexpress the item costs GBP 4.87. On Google, there are 10+ companies all offering this device for similar…

The price at Amazon Warehouse is entirely based on some Amazon formula relative to the current "new" price at Amazon - which can result in weird price effects such as the one you noted.

It can also result in very good prices when the "new" item drops with a coupon or similar.

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