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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

#81

Post by TheAdamist »

Brendinooo wrote: post #8
float4 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of products are returned in used state, or have very slight use marks like scratches, tiny dents, protective foil that's been removed, etc. These items therefore can't be resold as new. Finding out exactly which items are and are not good enough is expensive, and therefore the items are just discarded.

>About half of the items marked for destruction were still in their shrink-wrap, while the other half were returned items in good condition, they said. They're destroying new products too!

Counterfeit, recalled, hazardous, unlicensed, etc items can all be "new". And need to be destroyed.

The article is heavy on implication and light on facts.

They are destroying things for a reason, which isn't given. It could be a bad reason of course, but probably isn't.

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

#82

Post by TylerE »

fallinghawks wrote: post #80

Trashing returns of perfectly good products is unfortunately nothing new. I had a friend who worked at a transfer station in the early 2000s that got sent returns from PetSmart. The return reason was written on a label. Some stuff was defective of course, but others, it was some trivial reason like the customer didn't like the color. The item was in otherwise perfect condition and going to the landfill. I name PetSma…

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

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

#83

Post by slownews45 »

JCM9 wrote: 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.

Newpapers / books etc used to get pulped regularly. Seriously - back when your local newsdealer sold papers the way it worked is you'd tear off the front page of paper and pulp the rest. You'd be credited unsold copies based on the torn off front page. This was national - and daily.

Books used to have print runs, after 2 years or even less, anything excess got pulped (millions of items).

If you work in a western grocery store - the expiration date thing used to be ridiculous (perfectly good food in my view going out door). They wouldn't let workers take it home either because of potential conflicts. Inventory management has improved significantly here though I think (still an issue of course).

Amazon charges enough to cover the costs of the returned products. I've even been asked to throw away items myself (I returned something, they credit me the funds and asked I dispose of the item myself).

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

#84

Post by slownews45 »

fallinghawks wrote: post #80

Trashing returns of perfectly good products is unfortunately nothing new. I had a friend who worked at a transfer station in the early 2000s that got sent returns from PetSmart. The return reason was written on a label. Some stuff was defective of course, but others, it was some trivial reason like the customer didn't like the color. The item was in otherwise perfect condition and going to the landfill. I name PetSma…

One issue is the liability risk. Especially food type products, retailers are really worried about putting something back on the shelf that has been out of their control.

What's the brand damage if returned petsmart food kills 20 animals because someone was tampering with it? For most folks it's not worth the risks.

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

#86

Post by skybrian »

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…

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 they’re evil villains or speculating that there must be a logical explanation.

(And it might have been good for the story itself to say this.)

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

#87

Post by kevincox »

crazygringo wrote: post #66
londons_explore wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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

That isn't the author's point. If it cost 20% of the price to produce and ship a product to the end user (AKA 400% markup, which isn't unreasonable for many items) then providing a discount >20% is less profitable than selling a new item at full price. Obviously it isn't an exact formula (you may capture sales that you would have otherwise lost) but the larger the discount the less likely it is to make sense, even if the item is "free" to sell because your profit off of the discounted "free to produce" item is less than the profit off of the new item, even after subtracting the costs.

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

#88

Post by fallinghawks »

TylerE wrote: post #82
fallinghawks wrote: post #80

Trashing returns of perfectly good products is unfortunately nothing new. I had a friend who worked at a transfer station in the early 2000s that got sent returns from PetSmart. The return reason was written on a label. Some stuff was defective of course, but others, it was some trivial reason like the customer didn't like the color. The item was in otherwise perfect condition and going to the landfill. I name PetSma…

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.

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

#89

Post by makomk »

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…

That's a 24 V AC power supply with a 8 meter cable, which requires a lot more copper and iron than a little switch-mode DC plugpack with as little cable as they can get away with. They're very different products.

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

#90

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

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 quality of life.

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