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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

#61

Post by okprod »

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.

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.

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

#62

Post by bombcar »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #18
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…

> but if you go to return some small value items Amazon tells you to just keep it/throw it away. Anecdotally, this isn't always true. I have only returned a handful of things over the years, but among them was a microphone windscreen that didn't really fit. It cost maybe €6 or so and they did have me send it back.

I don't know what triggers the "keep it" option but I suspect there's a formula involving shipping price, whether it is a shipped/sold by Amazon or a marketplace vendor, account standing, etc.

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

#63

Post by throwaaskjdfh »

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 facts are in order, reporting accurate facts and leaving "contextualization" to someone else is good journalism, especially if the facts themselves are not widely known or actively hidden.

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

#64

Post by Symbiote »

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, you have to find another way to penalize the behaviors you dislike or incentivize the behaviors you want.

Aren't articles like this part of that "other way"? The start of the long path to regulation.

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

#65

Post by CarelessExpert »

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 goodness of their hearts, nor was it technology or government action that caused them to reform their practices. It was pure, simple public pressure that did the job.

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

#66

Post by crazygringo »

londons_explore wrote: post #58
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 s…

> Thats why you rarely see discounts >30% in amazon warehouse

I think it's more that, if an item is in genuinely resellable working condition, lots of people are willing to pay 70% for it, so there's no reason to go lower. Heck, stuff in excellent condition is usually around 90% the original price, because people will pay it.

The fact that Amazon permits third-party sellers to sell used items in the first place seems to be evidence that Amazon isn't worried about them cannibalizing sales of new items. And after all, Amazon knows buyers interested in used items might buy elsewhere anyways, so Amazon prefers to make that profit itself. That's why "Amazon Warehouse" exists in the first place.

On eBay, when you find items that are akin to "open box" but are only 40% or 30% of the original price, there's usually something seriously defective -- the screen doesn't work, it's missing a required accessory, etc. They're basically being sold for parts. That's just not the business Amazon's in.

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

#67

Post by ohgodplsno »

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…

> First of all, "130K" is a meaningless number except as a percentage of items sold/returned.

No, it's not. 130k of _anything_ is a stupidly high amount. It may be 0.1% of items sold, it's still 130 000 perfectly good items destroyed. In many countries, supermarkets are obligated by law to give away unsold food as long as it is not perished. The exact same thing should happen to Amazon.

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

#68

Post by semanticist »

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

In the UK a lot of the Amazon returns end up on John Pye auctions, which haven't been running at the same volume during the pandemic.

I wonder if Amazon are having to dispose of more items this way because their usual liquidation disposal chain is massively backlogged? If people like John Pye have all their warehouses already full, then there's nowhere for Amazon to send the stuff they'd normally dispose of that way, so it ends up at the local dump.

(Which, as an aside, is my local dump, as I live ~5 minutes drive from this specific Amazon warehouse, and the pictures in the piece match the local landfill site.)

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

#69

Post by cosmie »

godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #13
Brendinooo wrote: post #2

Why? The article seemed to focus more on the "what" and "how".

Tons of 3rd party sellers use the Fulfilled by Amazon program where they have Amazon store and handle all logistics on their items. It's not cheap, and iirc cost increases over time. Amazon doesn't want their warehouses full of shit that doesn't move. If the 3rd party stops paying and doesn't want to pay to have it shipped back to their own facility, then they need to get rid of it.

Amazon also charges for the disposal itself[1]. Although they're likely not going to receive payment from delinquent accounts, it's something sellers in good standing have to account for.

Amazon charges a monthly storage fee[2]. If your inventory hasn't moved within a year, you'll start getting charged a supplemental long-term storage fee[3] on top of that.

If you want Amazon to ship the inventory back to you, there's a removal fee[4] for that. Or Amazon can get rid of it for you, but there's a disposal fee[1] for that. And the fees for both options are actually the same, the deciding factor is really just whether you want to keep control over it (and have the capacity to receive/store it somewhere) or you want to pay Amazon to take it off your hands entirely (at which point they can do what they want with it).

... thinking about it, I wonder if this is how counterfeits end up working their way into the official "Sold by Amazon" supply chain.

[1] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G5FKTA8LXU...

[2] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help.html?...

[3] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help.html?...

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

#70

Post by semanticist »

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 this - in the UK there's companies like John Pye who do 'remaindered goods auctions'. There's a John Pye warehouse less than half an hour from this specific Amazon warehouse.

But they've not been able to do their normal auctions during the pandemic, and I expect remainder auction places have full warehouses and staffing issues. So if they're not able to take the excess stock from Amazon, Amazon's next easiest option is to dump it in the landfill.

(Source: I've bought a lot of stuff from that John Pye warehouse, including Amazon returns, and live locally to the Amazon warehouse in question.)

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