Cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-amazon-returns-1.5753714

by jgneff • 6 years ago

535 332 6 years ago

jf2• 6 years ago

To save you the trouble of loading the page: the Amazon returns they tracked for this article ended up in a landfill.

frereubu• 6 years ago

I'm not sure you actually read the article. They bought 12 items and one went to landfill (which Amazon said was because it arrived damaged). What they describe is pretty egregious, but not all returns go to landfill - some are resold, some are sold in bulk, and some go to landfill.

jf2• 6 years ago

Wow. You’re right. Thank you for correcting me!

sokoloff6• 6 years ago

30 to 40 per cent of all online purchases are sent back

That seems almost an order of magnitude higher than I’d expect. Setting aside kids shoes (which probably do get 50% returned), I can’t imagine sending back even 5% of my online purchases, let alone 30-40%.

I think I’ve sent back exactly 1 Amazon order in the last year, out of nearly 100.

searchableguy2• 6 years ago

Few people probably abuse the system too much. There are scamming forums and services for Amazon refunds. Scammers take 10-20% of the item cost for refunding it without giving the original.

A trend I observed here among college students is buying clothes for a party or instagram selfie and then returning it.

Small sellers get screwed pretty hard. You should check their forums.

glitchcrab2• 6 years ago

Wait, people genuinely buy clothes (although this is more like borrowing) just for the purpose of taking a selfie?

I can't even begin to comprehend how desperate they must be to look good and fit in.

jhbadger• 6 years ago

Back in the days of brick-and-mortar shopping there used to be people who bought a large screen TV shortly before a big sports game and then returned it afterwards. A lot of stores revised their return policies because of this.

kelnos5• 6 years ago

A trend I observed here among college students is buying clothes for a party or instagram selfie and then returning it.

Ok, yeah, so buying something and finding a creative way to hide the tag so you can wear it to a single event and then return it is common enough that it's a decades-old TV/movie trope, but... buying something just to take a selfie for Instagram and then return it? What has the world come to...

ThePadawan• 6 years ago

It varies significantly between sectors.

I for one have the unfortunate problem that my clothing size is somewhere between M and L. Whenever I buy from a new manufacturer, I basically have to flip a coin if I pick the right one. So for some clothing products, I would definitely hit 50%.

medmunds• 6 years ago

And unlike many clothing stores, Amazon doesn't allow directly exchanging an item to change size. Instead, they treat an exchange as a refund followed by a new purchase (at the then-current price). When something is on sale, the discount may no longer apply by the time you go to exchange it—so if you're at all uncertain about the size you're better off ordering one of each up front, and then returning the ones that don't fit.

Freak_NL• 6 years ago

This is a well know problem with online clothes shopping by now. In the Netherlands 13% of all online purposes is returned, and between 30% and 60% (shoes) of clothing.

I have the same problem with my 200cm and slim posture. I have a handful of brands I can order blindly, but jeans in particular are a chore to get the right fit. I strongly prefer brick and mortar shops, but size availability varies.

People used to think that returned goods would just be freshened up and sold again — just like clothing you try on in a brick and mortar store — but the reality of the system is slowly getting understood thanks to investigative journalism worldwide.

A Dutch television program in this category concluded that returned clothes that are in good condition are often bound for for markets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where there is a demand for brand goods below or at the price of lower quality Chinese imports. Some brands don't want this because of brand dilution and fear of their products hitting the black market, so those items are simply destroyed instead.

Suggested solutions include charging a fee for returns, but that will have to be mandatory because people will just shop where the returns are free if left optional.

Personally I would like to see high street shops offer the option of trying on clothing ordered online at their shop for free (or others even if a good business model can be found), and have them handle the returns instead of this grossly unsustainable system we have now. By eliminating the risk of people abusing the system, the need to remove those items from the chain is diminished significantly; just like regular clothes shopping, but with the benefit of a much larger catalogue.

CodeWriter232• 6 years ago

IMO it's definitely exaggerated. If you're selling through Fulfillment by Amazon (as I did for years), the merchant is charged for the return shipping cost, which is often UPS Retail Pricing.

Considering the inbound shipping costs to the fulfillment center, the storage and handling costs, hard cost of the finished good, the cost of returning the item from Amazon to the merchant if it is deemed to no longer be "New" (or the choice by the merchant to destroy) plus Amazon's commission of 15-20% depending on the item category, a 30-40% return rate would make one's business unviable at best and bankrupt at worst.

an_opabinia• 6 years ago

a 30-40% return rate would make one's business unviable at best and bankrupt at worst.

Amazon's retail business has poor profitability.

tiku• 6 years ago

Here in the Netherlands it is almost common for girls to shop and fit at home, the sent a lot of stuff back.

x87678r3• 6 years ago

I have friends who send back nearly everything. Not sure about shoe size? Order 3 sizes, keep the one you like and send back the other two (or return all 3 if you dont like it). Want a shirt? Order 5 and keep the ones you like, if any.

vladvasiliu• 6 years ago

I'm sure there are people who abuse the system, but for you example of clothes, I'm not surprised there is a high number of returns.

Last year I bought two Levis jeans at the same time. One the exact same model, color and size as the one I was wearing which was worn out, the other a different color (figured I could use having two pairs of jeans). None fit me correctly. The model I had already was too big, the other too small. Sent both of them back and made the effort to go to a brick and mortar store where I could try them. Turns out the sizes had changed or something. I ended up with a different cut, as the model I had was either too tight on the legs or too wide at the waist...

ChuckMcM• 6 years ago

This is the pattern I've seen as well.

That and the anti-pattern of using Amazon as a quasi-tool-rental outlet where they buy something for a project, use it, and then return it after the project is done. The 'borrowing' aspect was also an issue at Fry's in the Bay Area where test equipment that they sold would have been used already.

Of the two I think the 'borrowing' pattern to be pretty unscrupulous. I see the buy a bunch and return the ones you won't use/wear/eat what ever is more along the lines of the store fitting room approach.

withinrafael• 6 years ago

I do this and Amazon even encourages this pattern via its Prime Wardrobe and other past offerings.

x87678r3• 6 years ago

I have to add its almost like this for other stuff. Its harder to showroom stuff and buy online now you need to order and return to try out. It isn't just clothes: laptops, furniture, nearly everything is likely to end up like this.

627467• 6 years ago

Sounds wasteful but if we assume normalization of online ordering for clothing (where good fit is important) then this is probably the most efficient way to handle this situation. I suppose ordering a single item, trying, returning then ordering 2 more times until you get the right fit: that sounds a lot more wasteful than order 3 items in one go and doing a single return.

Now, IMO, ordering clothes (and shoes, or anything you're supposed to wear and where fit is important - at least important for a substantial demographic) through online shopping just doesn't seem to make as much sense as other things.

I personally rarely buy online unless I'm talking about staples like shirt and tees that I've tried from certain brands and know how it fits (so don't need returning).

As with other things... this huge shift to online ordering may make from efficiency perspective only when you ignore externalities and subsidies.

roywiggins• 6 years ago

It's not like the shoes are going out the door without them knowing that the same person just ordered three pairs in different sizes and is almost certainly going to be returning two of them.

It's simply not possible to be sure about a shoe size sight unseen. Even within the same brand of shoe, fit varies. I have to assume a very high returns rate is totally expected by online shoe retailers (and for that matter offline ones).

echelon• 6 years ago

This is so incredibly wasteful.

I hope we go back to shopping malls for clothing and fitted purchases.

washadjeffmad2• 6 years ago

That's how every woman in my life, ever, has shopped for apparel, from TJ Maxx to Saks to Amazon.

I always felt bad about returns, but my SO worked retail in school and assured me this is how it's designed to be and how every big shopper does it.

And I don't blame returners. There used to be a website that listed variance in sizes from major clothing brands and fashion lines, and it can be huge. If I like a cut of jeans or slacks, I have to try on several, and they without fail will not fit the same.

jjoonathan3• 6 years ago

I think it depends a lot on category. What you said about kids clothing is spot on, but I'd expect similar dynamics for women's clothing (tighter fits = lower tolerance, also lower tolerance for color mismatch etc) and there are a couple of categories that I've outright stopped buying on Amazon because of the enormous problem rate, namely whitelabeled consumer electronics.

In 2020 I've returned ~5%:

    markers that were dry
    test clips with mislabeled quantity
    de-laminated screen protector sheet
    mislabeled thermal printer (photo, listing said it had an internal spool compartment but it didn't)
    cell-phone arm stand that lacked the spring tension, even adjusted to maximum, to hold up my small, un-cased Google Pixel

1% sounds quite low, but if I had foregone buying anything heat/storage sensitive and followed my own rule about whitelabeled goods that's exactly where I'd be. On the other hand, my returns were painless and most gambles paid off so I think I'll carry on.

nextos4• 6 years ago

I've also stopped buying at Amazon after 15 years. Even consumables and small items are problematic. Just in the last year, I encountered many issues including:

* Showerhead that came without box, and clearly used. It still had a lot of water inside!

* Underwear from a brand that sells items inside a sealed bag and discards returns came used, without bag (yuck!)

* A module of Samsung RAM had visible wear signs and didn't work

* Cycling glasses came without box and several missing items

The underwear thing upset me so much I emailed Jeff Bezos. After lots of emails forwarded around, nothing happened.

It's sad because they used to be good. But the number of returned and counterfeit items sold as new is mindboggling.

dhruval• 6 years ago

Your intuition is correct, at least in the product categories that I have experience with.

Anything over 2% returns to me generally indicates to me that something is wrong with the product or the product description is not clear enough.

In fact having a 30-40% return rate with a high enough volume will get a buyer banned from Amazon.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers...

RandallBrown• 6 years ago

I used to work for Nordstrom who has an even better return policy than Amazon. For certain items, like women's dresses, return rates were up to 80%.

Part of this is because people will buy several sizes of the same item and return the ones that don't fit. The other part is people wearing it once then returning it.

lol636363• 6 years ago

30% seems really high. And I say that as someone who returns items more than most of my friends. My estimate is about 3-4% of items that I have returned over last 15 years of online shopping. And my friends think that is too high and guilt me for abusing the system. But maybe I should not feel as guilty.

The reasons I return items is usually false advertising. I used to spend hours reading reviews and product specs before buying. But now I don't have time to sift through reviews. And of course, fake reviews make it harder.

So all I got is maker's ads and if ads are lying then I don't feel guilty returning an item.

It seems most people have an attitude that if a buyer got duped with false advertisements then it is buyer's fault.

jjoonathan3• 6 years ago

I have the same return philosophy as you. In 2019 and 2020 it has resulted in ~5% returns, in 2018 it resulted in 20% returns. Why? Athletic bluetooth earbuds. That single category was such a stinker that it singlehandedly quadrupled my return rate. 2015 had a similar spike when I started equipping an electronics lab, but 2016 and 2017 were fine. In any case, I think the reasonable return rate is a heavy function of what you're buying. One person's 10% return rate might be borderline fraudulent while another person's 30% return rate might be perfectly reasonable.

coding1233• 6 years ago

I was very surprised about my own Amazon usage today...

For the year 2020 (so far):

Amazon Orders: 231

Returns: 38

Return Percent: 16.45

Based on Gmail search:

amazon "your refund" after:2020/01/01 before:2021/01/01

For the year 2019:

Amazon Orders: 32

Returns: 11

Return Percent: 34.3

Based on Gmail search:

amazon "your refund" after:2019/01/01 before:2020/01/01

A couple of things to note, 2019 I was mostly buying and returning bras, shorts and shirts that my wife was trying on, because Target and other stores stopped carrying some of her favorites. Some of these clothing purchases actually spilled into early 2020.

2020 I am returning things a lot less because it's a lot of Pantry orders.

rakamotog• 6 years ago

Refund can be for orders which they were unable to deliver. Example:- Groceries. I get refund if even 1 out of 30 items is not available, that isn't a return. Are these 38 in 2020 all returns?

vincentmarle• 6 years ago

I’m more surprised about the huge number of orders you placed this year alone.

Compared to me: I have placed 197 Amazon orders since 2013, and have had 13 returns so far.

kneel• 6 years ago

Amazon sells so much garbage I'm not surprised that they end up tossing most of it.

I used prime for about a year, had probably a 50% return rate and ended up cancelling. Their items are so low quality it's not worth the effort.

dheera• 6 years ago

There are lots of products I need to return multiple times before I get a good copy. Like my Dell 24 inch 4K monitor. Most of Amazon's warehouses are duds with faint grey lines across the screen, so you have to expect to order and return 3-4 times before you get a good one. The ones you return will probably of course be sent to other customers instead of getting sent back to Dell.

And there are the Samyang/Rokinon camera lenses as well -- you need to usually buy 3-4, test them out and keep the sharpest copy. Quality control issues on the manufacturer's side but it's a good deal if you're willing to deal with it.

Some sellers just suck at packaging. There are numerous products that are too easy to damage just by opening the packaging -- I received one item completely wrapped in 8 layers of bubble wrap followed by an entire coating of packing tape over 100% of it. It was nearly impossible to cut open without cutting into wires because you really don't know where the wires are under all that packaging.

e40• 6 years ago

I don't believe that stat at all. I've ordered way too many items, since 1999. I think I returned 1 or 2 in that 21 years.

amelius• 6 years ago

Fortunately, the shipping costs of returns will always be on the seller. (Because you can't compete brick-and-mortar stores out of existence in part by having no return costs, and then later introduce these costs).

washadjeffmad2• 6 years ago

It's important to note "sent back" doesn't imply "because it was defective".

People who pay for Prime do it specifically because it facilitates the way they shop. They buy a lot of stuff, figure out what they want, like, and need, and send the rest back.

It's completely normal, expected behavior in retail apparently.

Shivetya• 6 years ago

QVC has an incredible return policy and their margins are built around it.

I do think that anything they cannot process properly should be handed off to charity groups who would get items in exchange for helping sort it all out. Then again, having seen my local St Vincents and Goodwill they to suffer overflow but at least with Amazon returns the items would be newer

gogopuppygogo• 6 years ago

I never would have thought this till I started a relationship with a woman who buys several sizes of everything she shops for to ensure she gets the right fit. Women’s attire doesn’t have standard sizing so every brand is different. It’s a giant guessing game.

Basically, the industry needs some standards to help with all this waste.

jiofih• 6 years ago

But that’s completely different from ordering from Amazon, and not even considered a return per se. Zappos and Zalando operate under this model where you try out different sizes and return the ones that don’t fit.

pbhjpbhj2• 6 years ago

Basically, the industry needs some standards //

They futz with sizing because it's a part of their marketing. Fashion targeting older/ fatter people will have smaller sizing to flatter the customers.

I think buying clothes that don't fit just because you want to say it's a particular size is far more a part of female culture (in my social circles in the UK): womens' clothes are in "sizes", men's clothes are in measurements (inches/cms).

I don't think the industry, nor many of the customers for female fashion want accurate measurement-based sizing.

mcv7• 6 years ago

My wife also buys a lot of clothes online, and indeed it's a matter of fitting and sending back what doesn't fit. I recently did it too: ordered two pairs of pants, one was fine, the other didn't look remotely like what I ordered, so I sent it back.

In shops, you can try them on. Online, I think it's unavoidable that people try them on at home and send more than half of their clothes purchases back.

Standardisation in the clothing business seems incredibly unlikely. And even when the size is technically correct, it can still be too uncomfortable. You just never know until you try it on.

If you want a truly universal sizing standard that will always guarantee correct sizes, it's going to have to be a lot more detailed than just one or two numbers. It would be a data dump nobody can remember. It might be interesting to have an online service that would remember such detailed sizing info for you and could produce clothes on demand with perfect fit.

Bayart2• 6 years ago

Women’s attire doesn’t have standard sizing so every brand is different

Neither do men's attire. Even sizes that are meant to be standard (like the British/Italian/EU systems for shirt, jacket and pants sizing) aren't.

I don't buy anything from sellers that don't explicitly give the dimensions in centimetres anymore (which has become standard practice).

jtbayly• 6 years ago

With all the fake items, I'd say that 30-40% sounds about right, and that a good portion of what is returned should be destroyed, not resold.

mathattack• 6 years ago

It’s relative. I rarely things. My wife will return 3 items for each she keeps. 30-40% seems roughly reasonable as an average when you factor in fraud.

pwagland• 6 years ago

I can confirm (via unverifiable sources sadly, so this is only anecdotal) that this number is at worst believable. I know of other online retailers that see similar return numbers.

Particularly in clothing.

From what I understand it is a relatively common practice to order 2-3 of a given item in different sizes, and to return the ones that don't fit.

And this is just the "honest returners", not even going into the whole "order this fancy clothing, wear it to a party, and then return it" "dishonest returners"

baby• 6 years ago

That is quite an insane number! What a waste or back and forth, and this because cities are not dense in the US and everything was built around cars. I probably return less than 5% of what I buy, but my gf returns a lot of the clothes she buys online.

lmilcin• 6 years ago

That's because returns are not due to faulty products, they are due to people trying to exploit the system.

I have bought hundreds of items on Amazon and never had to send back any. I bought thousands, of different types, on other services and I only ever had to send back two and that due to the fact the seller sent a wrong item.

I always do at least a very quick research regarding the seller and the item so that probably helps.

But the 30% I can understand is due to people who never intend to buy the product or buy a bunch of them to send some back.

I can sort of understand it in some of the categories (for example clothes) but I also see a lot of people proclaiming how smart they are because they surf on the wave of products they never pay for.

tmoertel• 6 years ago

Online "try before you buy" shopping, where you return everything you don't like, is more common than you'd think. Amazon actually uses this phrase as their pitch for the Prime Wardrobe program [1]:

   """
   Try before you buy. Exclusively for Prime Members.
   1. Choose up to 8 items.
   2. Only pay for what you keep.
   3. Free and easy returns.
   """

[1] https://www.amazon.com/b?node=14807110011

AdrianB1• 6 years ago

I never did a return, but I draw no conclusion from this statistical sample of one. I had no idea what is the percentage of returns, but I am quite disappointed by Amazon.

crazygringo• 6 years ago

The tactic of enticing customers to buy more than they need and return what they don't want "has had tragic repercussions for the environment and business," he says.

That's disingenuous. I've never purchased "more than I need" from Amazon. But probably about 10% of items purchased for the first time simply aren't as advertised -- not Amazon's fault, but the manufacturer's. They don't meet the needs you bought them for, so you have no choice but to return them. And of course clothing is notorious, because manufacturers still insist on making up their own idiosyncratic definitions of S/M/L, when simply providing measurements in inches or centimeters would fix most problems. (Also color-accurate photography, for when the item listed and photographed as red turns out to be orange-pink.)

"You're lucky if half of all returns can still be sold as new, so a huge amount of merchandise has to be dispositioned via some other means — liquidation, refurbishment, recycling, or landfill."

Yup, that's just how it works. That's why I buy a lot of stuff "open box" off eBay -- especially things like dongles, adapters, cheap peripherals. They all come from returns from places like Amazon and Best Buy, but are half the price. It's great.

This article isn't surprising, except for one data point about a single bag that wasn't resold. But they're probably hiring minimum-wage workers to categorize returns, who make errors.

There isn't really anything new in this article.

saalaa• 6 years ago

That's disingenuous. I've never purchased "more than I need" from Amazon.

My guess is you've never purchased clothes then. Regardless, this is your own individual experience and doesn't represent the trend as a whole.

navbaker• 6 years ago

Literally three sentences later they talk about buying clothes.

dralley• 6 years ago

No, this is absolutely a "thing", and I know several people who shop clothes from Amazon this way. It is incredibly wasteful.

loeg3• 6 years ago

> The tactic of enticing customers to buy more than they need and return what they don't want "has had tragic repercussions for the environment and business," he says.
That's disingenuous. I've never purchased "more than I need" from Amazon

It's a stretch to extrapolate from your singular experience to accuse the author of acting in bad faith.

citizenpaul• 6 years ago

idiosyncratic definitions of S/M/L

Its called vanity sizing. Basically people buy more clothes if they don't feel like they are buying fat/anorexic size clothes.

tomarr• 6 years ago

The GPS tracker technique does not seem foolproof, basic QA on returned goods would likely be trashing the GPS trackers.

BlueScreenDeath• 6 years ago

Exactly, a GPS tracker in the landfill != product in the landfill.

rantwasp3• 6 years ago

yeah. what people don’t understand is that the return has to be processed when it comes back. in an ideal world anything like a GPS tracker would surely be discovered.

there are also several issue with how the return may go. amazon may tell you to just keep the item (if the cost of shipping + processing the return is higher that the actual product price / margin on the item). they may decide that the item is in not good condition when it comes back. the packaging may be missing parts or damaged. i would guess that a lot of items don’t make it through the process.

also i would guess that because Amazon keeps existing and making a profit they have this baked into their business model. Also I would be shocked if the return rate is 30-40%. Again guessing, I would say it’s probably 1-2%. A lot of people buy shit they don’t need and keep it.

As far as “hacking the system” I think that they should have a system in place to track how many things you return (and if they were in good condition/could be resold) and how much money they made on your purchases. If overall you’re a net negative I would not be surprised if your account got suspended/banned. Why would they do business with you if you’re a bad actor?

7952• 6 years ago

You could surely hide it easily enough in the cardboard? Just wrap it over in parcel tape. The people at the other end will just assume you went a bit overboard in packing.

MichaelZuo• 6 years ago

This. The false positive rate is unknown and therefore the data could be highly misleading.

blacksmith_tb• 6 years ago

My read of that was that so little human attention is devoted to returned items that no one noticed a super-suspicious greenboard kicking around in the box.

RandomBacon3• 6 years ago

Everyone probably noticed, but didn't care. I imagine they see a lot of returns where the customer forgot to empty the pockets, or something got mixed in with the returns, etc.

tgsovlerkhgsel3• 6 years ago

Which would explain why the clothing "went" to an electronic recycler (tracker removed and tossed into e-waste).

I also wonder how much is handled by weight. Weight of returned product != expected weight of product -> something is off and it's probably not worth figuring out.

blondie9x2• 6 years ago

We have known for awhile that online shopping is hurting the planet. Alibaba and Amazon are a huge part of the problem as the biggest online retailer in the world. with packaging thrown out and returns often destroyed. There are efforts to mitigate this but they are insufficient and need to be further developed.

S_A_P• 6 years ago

If the return rate is truly 30-40% wouldn’t this be easily proven by quarterly income statements? Even at the generous assumption that every item is sold for double the wholesale price if 1 of 3 packages are returned and tossed/recycled or otherwise not resold I can’t imagine Amazon being even close to profitable as a retailer. I know Amazon was famously unprofitable for years but those days are gone now right?

azinman2• 6 years ago

So this was a lot about Amazon, but it leaves out comparisons to any other store. What do others do? Is this the common practice?

chaboud• 6 years ago

I don't know what it's like now, but, when I worked at Best Buy in the 90s, we had a couple of shoulder height palletized bins in the back. If a customer brought something back with a "didn't work" reason, it went in the bin.

We threw items in the bin from a distance, so they were definitely unsellable. I'm sure that lots of merchandise that would have been functional/sellable ended up being thrown out.

bluedino3• 6 years ago

Devo!

dade_• 6 years ago

It is standard practice in the industry, and certainly any by any profitable retailer. In fact it was a story by an executive about how much money it was costing the company to manage returns, and it was far cheaper to just throw them away. It surprised me at first, but I came to learn that this is just how it is done.

I am disappointed by CBC making a click bait Amazon story, when it is actually the story of retail that our unconscious civilization ignores. CBC does mention this later in the article.

decko• 6 years ago

Fulfillment by Amazon Donations, which Amazon says will help sellers send returns directly to charities instead of disposing of them.

So the seller ends up having to take the loss?

dleslie• 6 years ago

Yes, and it's a serious problem.

winkeltripel• 6 years ago

But they at least get a tax write off for a percentage of the value of the donation.

jlokier• 6 years ago

No. It's not "at least they get a tax write off", because that implies a benefit, such as when paying profits to a charity you want to support anyway.

With these returned items, the seller just loses money and has a lower income than if they could resell them.

Their tax goes down because of returns, but that's just normal income tax because their income goes down.

If they didn't donate the goods, just threw them away, they would pay exactly the same tax. So there is no tax benefit gained from donating.

nearbuy2• 6 years ago

The seller has the option of taking the item back if they prefer. If they don't want it back, they can donate it.

TigeriusKirk• 6 years ago

Well, everyone who buys from the seller splits the loss. No doubt it's built into their prices.

chrisseaton• 6 years ago

How do these trackers read a GPS signal from inside these bulky items, plus packaged, plus inside a building?

ardy42• 6 years ago

I have some GPS data loggers that can do that. The fix isn't great or very accurate indoors, but it's probably good enough for this purpose.

myself248• 6 years ago

Newer GPS chips are downright magical. Several years ago, I had a 5-series Ublox get a signal when, as a joke, I soldered a trimmed stub of paperclip to its antenna pin. No tuned patch antenna, no polarization sensitivity, no preamp, no SAW filter, just a piece of wire that I eyeballed to be roughly probably something like a quarter-wave at 1.5GHz. Ish.

It got a fix in about 3 minutes, indoors, on a workbench, under 2 shelves of equipment and parts, in a part of a building with a double roof.

And that was the 5th generation chipset. We're on the 9th now, and they're much, much, much more sensitive.

All the habits and assumptions I learned with my 2002-era Garmin eTrex no longer apply.

ryanmarsh• 6 years ago

Jain likes the convenience of online shopping but worries about Amazon's carbon footprint.

What is this article about exactly?

sudoaza• 6 years ago

I guess this means you can buy stuff, return a box with trash inside, get the money back and keep the stuff. Sweet!

bserge• 6 years ago

That's like the most common scam on Amazon. Many of the packages are put back on the shelves/on sale without being checked, so some other buyer gets it and either has to (once again) return it or lose their money. It's pretty ridiculous.

whoisjuan2• 6 years ago

While this may seem shocking, logistically it makes sense. It’s potentially easier to destroy or dump a returned product than re-preparing it for sale.

I went out on a date with a program manager for one of Amazon’s return programs and she told me her job was basically finding out ways to repurpose returns as cheaply as possible. Apparently destroying and dumping it’s the easiest and least resource consuming way to deal with returns.

In a similar note, search for Amazon Warehouse. That’s one of their programs for returned merchandise and sometimes I have found insane deals there. But you gotta check often.

kennywinker7• 6 years ago

Apparently destroying and dumping it’s the easiest and less resource consuming way to deal with returns.

Not the least resource consuming - the least costly to amazon. There is a massive environmental cost to the practice - it's just externalized. If the companies involved (amazon, the manufacturer) had to bare the full environmental cost, the calculation would often come out different.

whoisjuan2• 6 years ago

Totally! That’s what I was going for. Least resource consuming but I’m talking about economic resources. Like man hours, packaging, transportation, etc.

The environmental impact is big! I hope this is being considered in their Climate Pledge.

tgsovlerkhgsel3• 6 years ago

Not the least resource consuming - the least costly to amazon.

I suspect that cost is a much better approximation of resource consumption than what feels wasteful, especially because it forces you to factor human time as a resource, which many environmental activists like to treat as infinite and free.

savanaly2• 6 years ago

What about the dumping is not internalized? Do companies not pay for landfill? I know that historically companies would take their trucks up the river and dump it in and hope nobody noticed but I sort of doubt that Amazon does that today.

ummonk5• 6 years ago

There is a significant environmental cost to the logistics of refurbishing, storing, repackaging, and reshipping returned goods though.

post_break• 6 years ago

I got a $350 Japanese made pump for my koi pond for $100 from warehouse. It was brand new but it leaked the oil from inside into the box so that’s why it was returned. I don’t even think it was turned on. Replaced the oil and works perfectly.

toast0• 6 years ago

Apparently destroying and dumping it’s the easiest and least resource consuming way to deal with returns.

They used to routinely ask the customer to destroy and dump the items, which was certainly less marginally costly. (If it encouraged more abuse, that cost is borne by other business units)

ryanSrich• 6 years ago

I wonder why someone couldn’t build a business like this. Basically contract with Amazon to handle all of their returns. That company then salvages and resells anything they can.

tgsovlerkhgsel3• 6 years ago

That's what happens. That's the "liquidators" the article/video is referring to, and most of the stuff goes there.

Can't do that with e.g. counterfeits though, or with products that may be dangerous.

And not everything is resellable in practice. To resell something you need to 1. determine what you have (not just the product but also the state it is in), 2. have someone who wants it, 3. that person needs to be willing to accept the risk of getting a used/substandard product (higher risk of it arriving broken), 4. you have to find that person, 5. you have to get the product to that person, 6. you have to manage the whole overhead of the process (additional shipping, sorting, testing, ...).

Each of these steps is associated with costs, both financial and environmental (the latter will skyrocket as soon as you start e.g. attributing some of the environmental footprint of the people whose labor you spend on these tasks to those tasks).

It's very unlikely that Amazon wouldn't optimize something so obvious.

Once the returns are generated, there's probably not much of a better way to deal with it. However, if you ban returns, online shopping becomes less attractive - people will use retail stores again. Which also toss stuff that doesn't sell, use a lot more real estate, air conditioning, and again, human labor. There's a reason online is often cheaper, and it may well be "cheaper" (better) for the environment too, despite the waste.

humaniania2• 6 years ago

They do. Look up amazon pallet videos.

mytailorisrich• 6 years ago

These days there are also so many health and safety concerns that putting any items which had their packaging unsealed back on sale is a big risk unless they are carefully checked and tested. Often this is not cost effective or even doable at all.

CivBase• 6 years ago

It’s potentially easier to destroy or dump a returned product than re-preparing it for sale.

Why can't returned goods be resold as "open box" or "scratch and dent" products with missing or damaged packaging for a significant discount? Surely making some money is better than paying to dispose of it - not to mention the terrible optics when you get caught.

ThrowawayR2• 6 years ago

"Why can't returned goods be resold as "open box" or "scratch and dent" products with missing or damaged packaging for a significant discount?"

Most likely because a person has to carefully inspect and repackage it (expensive and the volume is large) and it's a separate inventory category that has to be managed and have separate storage space allocated for it (another expense) and, on top of all that, it doesn't bring in as much money as a new item. And if there was some problem or damage that wasn't caught by the inspection, it's yet another return.

The difficulty of managing customer returned items is common to all retailers and has been known for a while, e.g.:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/10/growing-online-sales-means-m...

https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/26/news/retail-returns-landfil...

jackfoxy• 6 years ago

Logistics pipelines are designed to efficiently flow in one direction only. At large scale if returns are handled at all, it has to be a separate system. In the extreme case of logistic pipelines into war zones it leads to what looks like extreme waste. There was an infamous case during the Vietnam war when enterprising journalists exposed how expensive stuff, the really big item being F4 Phantom jet engines, that could not be used were being destroyed on site. Some politicians got to profess outrage at the Pentagon's wastefulness and get air time on the evening news. I believe there were even congressional hearings into the case of the jet engines. There really is no other way in a wartime logistics pipeline. The cargo airplanes land one after another. All the labor and equipment is dedicated to unloading the airplane as fast as possible and loading on waiting trucks. The loaded trucks drive out the exit gate. Aircraft take off as soon as they are emptied to repeat a cargo run. Empty trucks come in the entry gate and queue up to go on the tarmac for loading. There is no room in the process for a loaded truck to enter the premise, or for an empty plane to wait around. There is no labor or equipment available to do loading in the reverse direction either. And that's just the simplified version. There are many more nodes in the system expecting unidirectional flow. The goal is to get as much stuff into the war zone as fast as possible. Anything deviating from this goal is wasteful.

The big bottleneck in Amazon's process is probably, among others, how inefficient it would be to restock individual items in the warehouse.

oska• 6 years ago

This reads like a rationalisation to me. I would guess that the forces that beat the US in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese & the Viet Cong, were far more parsimonious in their resource use and put effort into extracting their equipment.

Of course, in the Vietnam War, the corporations back in the US who were making huge profits in supplying the war weren't at all worried about equipment being wasted overseas and not returned. And so we're back at the US military industrial complex and all of its unethical madness, famously satirised by Heller in Catch-22.

henvic• 6 years ago

Am I the only one worried about:

* The privacy of consumers who might eventually buy some of the stuff stuffed with their trackers.

* The scene at 1:49 where it appears they put a tracker in a plastic bag inside something like a coffee kettle.

* Sticking a tracker to a kid's toy.

What the hell is wrong with these people? I get they wanted to do a great investigation, but this seems so wrong to me...

ocdtrekkie• 6 years ago

Journalists tend to get a little more leeway for investigative purposes. And presumably they followed up and retrieved these trackers in some way. And will get rid of any personal information about the people who received the items.

Also, note they were expecting most or all of them to end up in landfills, them finding homes is an ideal outcome, but maybe not expected.

It also says something about the quality of returned merchandise and inspection of it: Amazon didn't find and remove the tracking devices, the products "looked fine" and were sent on their way. Perhaps that's one reason Amazon prefers to just toss stuff.

throwaheyy• 6 years ago

Yes, you’re the only one. Anybody could put a tracker inside items they’re returning, it’s on Amazon to inspect returned items, which any brick-and-mortar store would do.

quantified• 6 years ago

That’s an interesting ethics angle. Certainly a potential issue, but not likely to be an actual problem. They’d know where the item ended up, but not much about who it ended up with. Kid’s toys go to adults first on average. Knowing I bought a backpack on Amazon doesn’t say much, a little weird, but far better than a phone’s location tracking.

If the items were sensitive in some way (bondage equipment, say, or doctored home security equipment) then certainly.

kennywinker7• 6 years ago

The privacy of consumers who might eventually buy some of the stuff stuffed with their trackers.

I don't share your concern here. CBC is a reputable org. They can just turn off the trackers if the items appear to be getting re-sold to an end-consumer. Even then, I don't think it would be a privacy violation for a journalist to go and talk to them and say "hey did you know this was a returned item?" etc.

If the kids toy made it into the hands of a kid without that tracker being noticed, I'd have deeper concerns. I.e. what's stopping someone from putting razorblades or some toxic checmical in a kids toy and returning it? Someone needs to check over returned items for basic quality, and should DEFINITELY notice the massive tracker.

marvindanig• 6 years ago

Now compare these lies of recycling goods and plastic with the other lie of harvesting trees for paper pulp. ;-)

It's a perfect animal farm!

cbanek2• 6 years ago

I feel the worst about mattresses getting returned. I'm tempted to buy a new bed (it's just that time), but not being able to try them out, I'd feel bad returning one if I didn't like it. Those things are huge and hard to recycle, and you can't exactly resell them.

manigandham• 6 years ago

Depending on the company, they are often donated to homeless shelters and other places. But yes they generate a lot of waste too.

mkskm• 6 years ago

It's possible to resell nicer mattresses on Craigslist. CA also has a mandated recycling fee imposed on their sale now.

redisman• 6 years ago

But it’s foam. So what they’ll shred it and put it in a trash bag?

drummer• 6 years ago

Rhetorical question: if the returns are unsellable, why don't they give them away for free to the poor?

tinus_hn• 6 years ago

Because people who get free things don’t buy things. It doesn’t make economic sense.

bleepblorp• 6 years ago

People who are too poor to buy things won't buy any fewer things just because they get free things. They'll just have more things that they can resell for more money, which they will likely use to buy things they actually need.

Giving money--even indirectly--to poor people makes economic sense because they'll spend it on goods and services that keep other people employed.

Punishing the poor out of some moral imperative is economically destructive.

nearbuy2• 6 years ago

It says they have a program to donate the items to charity in the US and UK, but it's not available in Canada.

msie• 6 years ago

At this point I assume massive waste in every industry until proven otherwise. Massive waste in the food industry really distresses me.

ThePhysicist• 6 years ago

In Germany there are companies that buy up returns by the kilogram (mostly clothes), sometimes the e-commerce companies even pay them to take the goods off their backs. They then ship them to countries like Irak, Serbia or Lebanon to prevent those perfectly goood items to "flood" the European market. That way especially clothing brands protect their inflated prices.

baxtr• 6 years ago

I think the alternative would be to destroy the fashion items. I prefer the method you describe. I’m not saying it’s right. It’s just how the world of fashion works.

TheGallopedHigh2• 6 years ago

Whether right or wrong it decimates the destination country’s market place. Food for thought.

derefr• 6 years ago

So, then, why aren’t there companies doing the reverse: buying up the bulk clothing return boxes, not shipping them out of the country, but instead retailing them locally (and, indeed, “flooding” the domestic market in the process)?

Seems like exactly the sort of competitive strategy I’d expect from the “off-price” stores (TJ Maxx in the US, Winner’s in Canada, etc.).

cwhiz• 6 years ago

I would assume it’s an issue of agreements with Amazon.

dwild• 6 years ago

Many companies does that, they buy the pallets and sell the stuff, sometime even on Amazon directly. There's plenty of Youtube video talking about it. There's even a shop near I live that even clearly advertise that they sell returns from Amazon.

It's way scarier the stuff they send directly to landfill. I know someone that works in chemical waste disposal and they had a deal with Walmart to take care of it all (I'm pretty sure they still do). She was taking back some pretty nice stuff that could easily be sold pretty easily.

jrochkind1• 6 years ago

Good thing they don't mind flooding the market in Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon!

gilrain• 6 years ago

This practice has resulted in it being impossible for local competitors to spring up in those places, incidentally. When your clothing market is flooded with nearly-free product from overseas, domestic competition becomes impossible. This would seem good for consumers superficially, but it winds up limiting economic growth and creating a dependence which is likely to eventually fail.

theshrike79• 6 years ago

This is also a deep Youtube rabbit hole to dive into.

People buying returned stuff in bulk and seeing what happens, kinda similar to people buying rented warehouses when the lease expires.

neom• 6 years ago

It's insane to me that ONE of their returns traveled 105 miles around the city of Toronto alone.

sradman2• 6 years ago

It is unintuitive that an overnight package sent from Mississauga to Milton would go to Atlanta first, but that is the key insight Fred Smith had when he created FedEx. Regarding the CBC returns featured in the video, the 105 mile detour and the denim coveralls going to an electronics recycling facility support FedEx's strategy: exceptions in the normal processing workflow are error prone and expensive relative to the extra transportation costs.

The assumptions underlying the criticism of Amazon's and FedEx's strategy is that landfill costs and/or transportation costs do not represent the true cost to society.

coding1233• 6 years ago

Learning about this, I'm half-way tempted to return an empty box and donate the actual item to charity. I mean, I usually get my refund 5 minutes after the UPS guy scans the label. Do you think they do anything beyond that?

RandomBacon3• 6 years ago

That's still fraud, even if your heart is in the right place.

GekkePrutser2• 6 years ago

Huh I thought these would be resold as "Amazon Warehouse" returned items. I've bought several of those and they were definitely used.

dasudasu2• 6 years ago

Amazon disposes of it, but how much is the manufacturer involved? Who foots the bill in the end?

sradman2• 6 years ago

Near the end of the CBC Marketplace video, they show a vendor contract and state that the vendor pays either the shipping costs to receive the returned item or the disposal cost otherwise.

The reporting seems oblivious to the cost of humans making resell/reuse/repair/recycle/disposal decisions at this scale.

canada_dry2• 6 years ago

Everyone in the chain is complicit... people who carelessly order things, suppliers who decide it's cheaper to just let Amazon handle their returns, and Amazon who is stuck dealing with returns.

If we're going to fix something, it really aught to be food waste!

The amount of food that gets disposed of daily - while millions go hungry - is humanities greatest issue - not unwanted coveralls.

malcolmgreaves• 6 years ago

How long does it take food to decompose versus a pair of coveralls?

This is one of those situations where saying "this problem isn't important, look at X," isn't the best strategy. We have to solve _waste_ in general. Different types will have different solutions.

canada_dry2• 6 years ago

This is one of those situations where saying "this problem isn't important, look at X,"

It's all about directing (our extremely limited) focus on issues with a higher priority. Food insecurity (even in North America) is a significantly bigger problem than Amazon returns.

ummonk5• 6 years ago

A lot of food ends up in the landfill where it doesn't decompose, which is truly a waste.

jjoonathan3• 6 years ago

Sure, but just try telling hipsters that you need to put preservatives on their food to keep it good long enough to get it into the hands of the less fortunate.

jmnicolas• 6 years ago

When I called them last week, they offered to repair a faulty hard drive (clicking noises, SMART errors through the roof) ...

If they try to repair an irreparable hard drive but throw perfectly good items like a bag they're quite dysfunctional.

And their inability to send all the ordered items in ONE package is irritating too.

fergie• 6 years ago

Theres a guy on youtube who buys Amazon returns by the pallet and then sells it on. Its quite eye-opening. http://resalerabbit.com/

pavelevst• 6 years ago

It could be that tracker was noticed and sent to landfill, not the item

spcebar• 6 years ago

A Staples by where I used to live threw anything returned away. Used to dumpster dive there and got all kinds of interesting things. Perfectly good stationary, an expensive suitcase, an office chair, a PC (which was on the of cash registers but still neat).

mensetmanusman• 6 years ago

With the amount of food and goods wasted (probably approaching 50%), it’s amazing we have an economy where half the people’s effort is wasted.

hourislate• 6 years ago

Amazon has become an expensive place to shop for everyday items. I've found they typically don't have the best prices anymore and many of my tastes have changed over the years.

They are still super useful to find those hard to get parts that would typically be impossible to find locally or at least very expensive. Like a carburetor for a chainsaw or a part for an appliance, bearings for a hood fan motor, monitor arm, etc.

A lot of retailers have picked up their game when it comes to online shopping. Places like rockauto.com for auto parts are super competitive and offer a massive inventory (what a great acquisition it would be for AMZN to break into the auto parts sector). Newegg/MicroCenter for PC parts, Costco, etc.

But over all I can't remember the last time I had to return anything and my experience over the last 20 years has been a positive one.

clon• 6 years ago

How did they make sure that the entire backpack was returned, not just the tracker tossed?

bpodgursky• 6 years ago

As someone who never, ever returns online purchases (even in the 1/100 cases where I'm genuinely unhappy with what I got), I would love the ability to shop at a 10-20% discount at an online store (or some setting on Amazon) which completely disallows returns. You buy it, you keep it. Always.

Would love to stop subsidizing the indecisive, the scammers, the people who can't bother to research products before they buy, etc.

sjg007• 6 years ago

I think the majority of people don’t return stuff because it is such a pain to find a UPS store.

blondie9x2• 6 years ago

Amazon prime creates bad shopping habits and Amazon needs to be responsible for the extra emissions and returns.

kleer001• 6 years ago

Yes. In a perfect world there would be no externalities. All costs would be charged.

cwoolfe2• 6 years ago

Why not have the customer hold onto the return item until another customer buys it as used on amazon, and the return label ships directly to the new customer? Sure people could send unacceptable returns, but couldn't that be mitigated by losing the privilege to return in that way with amazon? It still seems better than the alternatives of throwing it away.

rkagerer2• 6 years ago

If you were just dealing with commodity items and trustworthy customers you might be able to get this to work. But I think in the real world it would break down quickly.

First problem: When do you credit the refund?

If you credit it right away, what happens if the customer subsequently loses the item? Even assuming you can simply rebill them, you've still pissed off the new purchaser who was expecting that item to be available.

If you don't issue the refund until the new buyer confirms receipt (which aligns some incentives of your returner) then what happens if it takes months to sell? Defer too long and you've pissed off the old customer and effectively reneged on your return policy (not to mention forced them to store your item without compensation).

Next problem: How do you apportion blame if old customer says they sent it in good condition and new customer says it arrived damaged? You have no way of knowing who's right. Do you just write it off?

My gut says you'll run into more issues as you flesh this out. e.g. The "speediness" of your brand will tarnish when customers drag their heels to ship things out (sorry, I'm on vacation, will have to wait until i get back). Human nature will tempt people to "borrow" the item while they're holding onto it for you. If you thought inventory control was hard with a bunch of warehouses fully under your control, imagine what it'll be like after you crowdsource it out to a bunch of consumers.

Amazon already let's you just keep low-value items that cost more to ship back than they're worth. The upside of your idea to Amazon seems small, and I see so much opportunity for abuse.

If you think you can solve the challenges, maybe you can launch a decentralized inventory startup. Would be worth a ton if you do manage to get it to work.

cwoolfe2• 6 years ago

I think you're right there would be huge challenges you mentioned. But I still think that the smarts of modern IT business-logic coupled with the scale of a company like amazon could at least do better than throwing it away in many cases.

Amazon is very customer-centric company. Given the huge pain this kind of system could cause for customers is my guess why they haven't rolled-out any attempts at a solution to the general public.

It's a fascinating problem to me. I've been buying/selling on eBay for 10 years. I also sell on Facebook marketplace for hard-to-ship items. I've learned that if you buy and sell used, you can essentially rent certain things for very cheap, which is a problem set and solution that has a lot in common with amazon's product return problem.

ComodoHacker• 6 years ago

The pinnacle of consumerism!

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

I wonder if Amazon will pursue these folks - they ordered items intending to return them. Got to violate some terms and conditions somewhere.

inopinatus3• 6 years ago

Let's take a moment to look at how disingenuous this article is:

* Out of twelve returned trackers, one of them went to landfill. The article focuses on that item and does not itemise the fate of the others.

* Adding a tracking device to a returned new product is tantamount to damage. If such a device is detected during returns processing, anyone with half a brain should immediately presume a malicious actor and have the item very carefully and securely assessed for disposal.

* Did not verify that the tracking device remained within the bag.

* "30-40 percent of online purchases are returned" what absolute hoopsla. I've worked in online commerce and this is off by an order of magnitude. A very few segments (e.g. shoes) may approach such return rates.

This crap is why journalism is in such disrepute.

eigenvector3• 6 years ago

I completely agree that their methodology is not robust.

But Amazon also refused to state what fraction of items go to landfill, despite making subjective claims that it's "on occasion" and the "vast majority" are liquidated or resold. If that was true, Amazon would have the data to back it up and would only benefit them to say so.

If we want to know the actual number of items that go to landfill, we don't need to send GPS trackers everywhere, we can just mandate Amazon (and all other companies) to report on that. It's not like they don't have the data.

inopinatus3• 6 years ago

That is a very reasonable public policy idea. Let's add to that list of failures: the article has no discussion of reasonable policy ideas (despite quoting researchers whose life's work is in producing them).

NB: don't assume that there's no downside to any given retailer unilaterally disclosing their return rates, because returns are a measurable factor in marginal cost & revenue assessment and partially describe both the elasticity of demand and overall customer sentiment. Every retailer of scale would be interested in obtaining the return statistics (especially segmented) of their competitors; and, as the tone of the article illustrates, there are any number of hacks poised to scribble out mendacious venom on the basis of such data, so no corporate PR lackey worth their communications degree will willingly start that conversation.

Spooky232• 6 years ago

In fairness, they outsource and sell returns by the pound. It’s a big business - they have no idea what happens to it.

yjftsjthsd-h• 6 years ago

If that was true, Amazon would have the data to back it up

Absolutely.

and would only benefit them to say so.

Not nearly as obvious. It might have some PR benefits (this week, until later when public opinion shifts), but it also provides information about their business that they may prefer to not share (off the top of my head, it probably leaks something about defect rates and their quality controls).

kelnos5• 6 years ago

If that was true, Amazon would have the data to back it up and would only benefit them to say so.

I expect Amazon likely outsources a lot of returns handling, so they may not have that data.

econcon• 6 years ago

I use amazon India, sometimes I receive broken stuff and I repair it on my own and ask Amazon India if they are willing to refund the part of the sale price.

Recently I had received a dented cooktop and since it was functional and my family isn't too much interested in aesthetics, Amazon offered 30% refund to keep it.

I think I am doing my part to prevent these products from ending up in landfill.

Amazon also honours refund and return request, but not all time I request it.

It's still better than offline shop experience where I've to deal with a real person making weird faces which I find hard to interpret.

arsome• 6 years ago

Canadian tax dollars at work... They got sued a few years back for some ridiculous food allegations in a similar vein too.

srveale• 6 years ago

Are you talking about when they said Subway chicken was only 50% chicken? Subway sued, lost, and had to pay legal fees. Pretty happy with that use of my taxes tbh.

darepublic• 6 years ago

Yea the CBC takes its cue from left wing American media which it poorly imitates

rkagerer2• 6 years ago

I agree their methodology is far from rigorous, although I still found it an interesting read.

I've seen a lot of people on HN complain after receiving counterfeit items or "new" goods that were obviously someone else's returns. I wonder what the Venn diagram would look like of those individuals and the ones who are outraged now.

ornornor• 6 years ago

It happened to me many times. So much so that I quit amazon and went to brick and mortar instead (who will often price match amazon anyway)

Amazon is welcome to sell these returns instead of throwing them away that’s not the issue. The problem was that they sell something as new when it’s been opened and used. I think no one would have an issue with it if the returned items were sold as such for a discount.

mdorazio• 6 years ago

To build on your last point, if your return rate is above ~10% - 15% depending on category (as a merchant), you actually get penalized by Amazon to the point where they will de-list your product. Return rate targets vary by category, but in general most merchants want them to be under 5%.

refurb• 6 years ago

This crap is why journalism is in such disrepute.

And this is from the Canadian Broadcasting Company - Canada's gov't funded TV/radio/print news service, not some fly by night organization focused on spitting out content to maximize ad impressions.

Doesn't give you much hope for quality reporting if they can't get it right.

cal5k• 6 years ago

The CBC is not considered to be particularly reputable even within Canada, which is extremely irritating given that our tax dollars are paying for it.

ficklepickle• 6 years ago

Marketplace is sensationalized garbage. Watch one of their videos on YouTube to see what I mean. It's all spin, trying to make people outraged.

CBC is definitely a mixed bag. Marketplace is amongst their worst.

hermanradtke• 6 years ago

I don't disagree with your assertion that the article is disingenuous. However,

"30-40 percent of online purchases are returned" what absolute hoopsla. I've worked in online commerce and this is off by an order of magnitude. A very few segments (e.g. shoes) may approach such return rates.

In the online retail world, a 30-40% return rate is common for apparel (clothes), shoes and accessory purchases. Certain categories, such as occasion (wedding, party, etc) could be significantly higher than 40%.

Source: I was an executive at a Nordstrom subsidiary for many years.

xyzzyz2• 6 years ago

You're supporting his point: apparel is one of the segments where such return rate is plausible, but it is completely off the mark for general merchandise.

xyst• 6 years ago

I hate to say it, but the decadence of first world countries is truly a burden on this planet.

ummonk5• 6 years ago

Kevin Lyons, an associate professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who specializes in supply chain management and environmental policy, says that 30 to 40 per cent of all online purchases are sent back. That number drops to less than ten per cent for merchandise bought at bricks and mortar stores.

What the hell? I rarely return either, but find myself returning online merchandise even less often than brick and mortar simply because of the inconvenience of managing packing and shipping.

How are people returning 30-40% of everything they purchase online?

bergstromm4662• 6 years ago

I made this comment in reply to another post:

The important part of this article is the critique of the powerful monopolistic corporate player, Amazon:

"[Amazon] did write the playbook on free returns, says Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, a global marketing and advertising agency.

The tactic of enticing customers to buy more than they need and return what they don't want "has had tragic repercussions for the environment and business," he says."

It seems to me like the HN community sometimes nitpicks over tiny details and fails to take part in the larger systemic critiques. Are there others who are also frustrated by the lack of larger, systemic critiques?

Cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up

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