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The Painful, Costly Journey of Returned Goods -- and How You End Up Purchasing Some of Them Again (cnbc.com)
Buyers return a huge number of packages they buy from Amazon and other e-commerce sites, so much so that retailers are sometimes left with little choice but to get rid of large swaths of inventory at a cost. Last year, customers in the U.S. returned about $351 billion worth of items that they had purchased from brick-and-mortar retailers and online stores, according to estimates by National Retail Federation. CNBC: There's a good chance that the $100 printer, the $300 wide-screen monitor, or the $170 router you recently bought from Amazon weren't supplied to the e-commerce giant by their original manufacturers. In fact, the order may have been fulfilled by someone like Casey Parris, who resells items that customers previously returned to retailers. Based in Florida, Parris spends about five hours each day visiting thrift stores and scanning auction and liquidation websites for interesting items, he told CNBC. Sometimes he finds auto parts, other times it's a pair of sneakers, and occasionally he purchases printer cartridges -- all with the goal of reselling them.
Walter Blake, who lives in Michigan, does the same. For years, he's been selling electronic items on Amazon that he acquires from a network of places. Blake and Parris are part of a growing cottage industry where dealers acquire discarded items at very low prices, only to resell some of them back on Amazon and eBay at a premium.
Walter Blake, who lives in Michigan, does the same. For years, he's been selling electronic items on Amazon that he acquires from a network of places. Blake and Parris are part of a growing cottage industry where dealers acquire discarded items at very low prices, only to resell some of them back on Amazon and eBay at a premium.
The bottom always supports those above.
I don't mind purchasing used goods, there are a lot of things that can be just fine if opened.
But - I do like to know they have been exposed to other humans. Every now and again from Amazon you get a product that has obviously been opened to some extent, that you ordered as new.
So far it's not been anything I cared to return (again), but I think Amazon should try to be extra careful to clamp down on any suppliers shipping anything ever opened as "new"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is nothing wrong with people re-selling thing as long as the following conditions are met:
1-The item is thoroughly tested, and any problems fixed or the item is listed as having defects.
2-It is clearly stated that the item is used or seller refurbished.
3-The item is listed for half or less of the going online price for the same item brand new.
4-If the item is listed as refurbished, any batteries must have been replaced with brand new batteries...if not, its USED, not refurbished!
5-Items cannot be listed as "open box" if the item has ever been removed from the box! Removal from the box makes it USED!
Better than tossing them in the trash!
There's nothing wrong with reselling a returned item. It's a good form of recycling as it's better than tossing it into the dump. So long as the item is pretty much "new" I could care less. I've gotten refurbished Chromebooks before that you could swear were "new" because they were in such good shape.
"The challenge of returns is not unique to the United States. Amazon sees more product returns in India than it sees in any other market where it operates, Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of consumer and brand protection at Amazon, told Indian daily Economic Times."
I can be buying something new for four thousand rupees and then send it back and get my money is returned to me. A few days later I can buy that very same item used for only 100 rupees. I save three thousand nine hundred rupees, and all I did was open the box an extra time. Would you be liking to be renting my bathroom when it is not in use?
The Market for Lemons (1970) never gets old.
This paper effectively supports the regulatory intervention of government to ensure accurate public labelling of remarketware of all stripes and sizes.
It's not by any means always a bad thing for flourishing private commerce that government maintains certain forms of caveat emptor in their fiat-powered gun sights. Who, precisely, wants a mode of private commerce where everyone sensible runs around with permanently cinched purse strings?
Moral of the story: be careful what you drown in the bathtub if you value liquid enterprise.
There are countless Youtube videos from people that buy Amazon Returns auction lots from sites like liquidations-dot-com, un-box the lots they got on video to make a buck on Youtube, and then re-sell everything to make a profit. Much like storage rental auctions the secret is out and too many people are now trying to do the same.
These people are criminals. Selling for more than cost is just unamerican.
Just means it worked at the time nowdays :(
Your reconditioned car alternator was tested and met minimum spec at the time...how long those used diodes last after that is not their concern. :O
Electronics is the same except you can add in a bunch of intermittent issues also
No, you didn't purchase these "from Amazon". You purchased them "through Amazon". That's referring to an independent seller.
As far as Amazon direct sales, they are transparent about it. Returns are sold through their own refurb department. (I think they have just rebranded this "Amazon Renewed"?) I have purchased several items and all were good deals in great condition. They disclose in advance anything cosmetic defect, missing item, etc. with photos. It is usually no more than a cosmetic defect to the BOX.
I bought a high-end garbage disposer that had a scratch on the bottom. I really don't care if the plumber's eyes are offended by the scratch. ;)
The fundamental problem is the mentality that "the customer is always right". That wasn't even what was originally said, all those years ago in Macy's. It was more along the lines of, don't argue with the customer in public.
If something is broken, or wrong, or whatever - of course, you should be able to send it back. However, when it comes to abuse, the retail world needs to grow a spine. Just as an example: There is an online clothing retailer where I live. They have trendy stuff, and quickly became very popular with young women. The last I heard, a year or so ago, fully half of the clothes were returned. Some anonymous interviews with their customers revealed the reason: Lots of them would order 3 or 4 outfits, wear them out, or to parties, or whatever - show off something new - and then return the outfits, only to order more.
The same thing happens in other branches, although non-clothing is a bit less personal. Who hasn't received a piece of electronics, or a toy, or whatever where the packaging has clearly been opened? If shop like the clothing retailer I mentioned stay in business, the only way they can do it is by sending out those very same articles again to the next customer. Sold as if they were new, not due to some shady middleman, but directly by the stores themselves.
So we all pay the price for this crap. Getting (hopefully lightly) used stuff sold to us as new. And generally paying higher prices, because the associated costs have to be covered somehow. If you aren't familiar with the site NotAlwaysRight, you should have a look. It's where people in retail get to tell the stories of some of the customers they have to deal with. It's funny, sure, but it's also freaking sad...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Wow, you're a shitty person!
I got a card back in 2009 that had obviously been opened and mauled. It was a passive heatsink design with the plastic cover over the end loose in the box, the fins on the end bent, and obvious signs of being previously opened. Given that they had used items for 5 dollars less and I had paid the new full price, I was incensed, but I'd had a friend purchase it since I didn't have a credit card and he didn't want the hassle of going through another return. Thankfully it worked fine, although the passive heatsink design was garbage without an 80mm fan ziptied to the side.
This was *BEFORE* the marketplace newegg, when they only sold their own merchandise on the website. I can only imagine how bad it is now, between that and chinese ownership.
[...]you recently bought from Amazon weren't supplied to the e-commerce giant by their original manufacturers. In fact, the order may have been fulfilled by someone like Casey Parris, who resells items that customers previously returned to retailers.
That is the biggest problem with Amazon. You buy something that is listed as new, sold and shipped by Amazon and you get open box, used or even worse - counterfeit item.
A lot of exdisplay/return goods are as new from amazon. Just because an idiot could not use it does not mean it is broken.
I would not buy some certain items for conterfiet reasons.
Ebay's been around 20+ years now, and the premise has been pretty much the same for most of that time. If this had been posted as news in 2000, it still would have been old news.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I have boaughy the wrong things in the past through falsehoods on the website, be it a monitor I knew had hdmi (older example), but didnâ(TM)t when was received. Is there something wrong with returning it? Itâ(TM)s the responsibility of the person selling to be clear about the goods itâ(TM)s delivering. Thatâ(TM)s definitely an important aspect of online marketing.
...if they include some type of electronic chip.
You obviously don't do this very often, or Amazon would have dropped you as a customer by now.
I bought a "new" mouse from Amazon (yes they were the seller) with their "frustration free packaging" option. The mouse I got was obviously used - the plastic foot pads had scuff marks worn into them from use, and the top had fingerprints all over it. I don't have an issue with used items - I buy refurb stuff all the time. But the principle being broken by selling used goods as new required me to return it for a refund. As much as it galls me to add retail plastic blister packaging to the waste stream, I don't trust Amazon enough to get "frustration free packaging" again.
If you can't see something before buying, the only way to comparison shop is to buy one of everything you're considering, and send back all the ones you don't want. I've done this with musical instruments and parts thereof, where this is actually expected practice (to the point where they don't charge immediately, as they expect most of it back). They'd rather support what I'm trying to do, make one shipment to me, and get one shipment back. Prior to such policies being implemented, people often would buy and exchange multiple times to get what they wanted.
For example, if I wanted to buy a Chibson (which I don't, I do think counterfeiting logos is a bridge too far -- but if they'd stop doing that I'd be fine with leftover Epiphone parts being assembled and sold as some other brand Les Paul, because that name has moved from company to company in the past), I would probably order three or maybe more to make it likely I'll get a good one. On the chance that there are multiple good ones, I'd order them in a variety of colors so I'd have a tie breaker based on looks. This means I could be sending back a perfectly nice instrument, if I found another one I like slightly better. I generally perform the courtesy of letting them know which of the returns are good and which are crap, since they don't have a problem with good items being returned. They've built it into their business model at this point. It looks like Amazon has too.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
If you could care less, then why don't you? What little bit of the argument at hand compels you to come here to tell us that you're only half-assing your level of care?
This is a sad shift of where we have come as a culture. It used to be that retailers that opted to provide high end customer service would include 'no questions asked' return policies and their premium customers appreciated this flexibility but mostly did not take advantage of it.
Roll the clock forward and we now have people that knowingly abuse these policies. I know of people personally along with all sorts of anecdotes where they have purchased a big screen TV for the super bowl or a PPV fight or similar, throw a watching party, and then take the unit back for a full refund AND SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH DOING THIS. Their rationale is often that other people do it so why not, and/or the store lets me do it so what's the issue.
The retailer often has no choice because all of their competition allow it so they will lose customers if they do not. This is often really hard on small locally owned stores because they have to compete with the chains, but do not have the purchasing power to push all those returns back to the vendor and so just have to eat up the discount they have to give to sell the 'previously opened' unit to someone else. And no, you can't just box it up and sell it as a new item - if you know it has been previously opened then legally in the US you are not allowed to sell it as 'new'.
So at the end of the day the manufacturers and the retailers all mark their products up to recover the losses due to returns and the people who actually pay for things end up covering the cost of the asshats who think it is their right to game the system. There are of course cases where things need to be returned because they don't fit or are not the right color or w/e, but with most purchases you should be able to figure those things out without opening and using the product.
Things obviously have changed. Gotten a lot of networking gear through Amazon's warehouse deals where the only thing damaged was the packaging. My printer was refurbed by the manufacturer. Extended warranties for anything high value and questionable.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
You're why retailers track our returns and sometimes decline them or ban you.
a glitch on Slashdot?
wooooooosh
In the span of 5-10 years ago I was addicted to Amazon. Hi, my name is Bob.
I would buy nearly everything off Amazon. Even some grocery and household items. Not fresh things, but dry goods like pasta, cleaning supplies, etc. I would watch their daily prime deals like a smoker needing a cigarette a few times each day.
I would sometimes buy refurbished or open box items through amazon warehouse deals, and they were fine. Just damaged boxes mostly. But then around 5 years ago the counterfeit flood started. It was just a few things at first, maybe they were testing the waters to see how tolerant customers were of not getting what they paid for, or maybe it was just vendors being scam artists. After it happened more than half a dozen times I lost all trust in amazon. My favorite online book store that had everything was now expanding into everything else, and not doing well at keeping standards up.
So I tried to break the habit. I deleted the app from my phone, deleted the tab from my browser, and deleted every promo email they sent without opening it.
And I failed. I fell off that wagon in about a week.
I so wanted my amazon back. I bought a cool drone, I thought it would be so awesome. The smile box arrived, pristine with it's new-cardboard smell. But inside was a crushed box with a broken drone in it. I was pissed. Why would they even bother putting this obviously broken drone in a box and sending it out? Don't they realize that the perfect outer box means there was no shipping damage? I slowly came to realize... amazon does not love me back.
So this time, with apps and favorites and bookmarks all gone, I also deleted all payment and addresses from my account. Strangely, it was impossible to find a way to actually close the account. There was page after page of "customer retention" crap, but it never got to a page that said "account deleted, thank you good bye".
And now, years later, having been amazon-sober for over 3 years I can honestly say my house is less full of crap, my finances are better off, and the world did not end.
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There is no "wooooooosh" here. Your attempt at humor is a failure. It may work in person, but not so much in an online post. BTW, notice that at least a few others agree with him according to the +5 Informative mod.
Just another day in Paradise
OMG you should see some eastern european stores where if you try to bring back an electronic in warranty they want to beat you up for it.
Warranty in general is very bad in eastern countries, people want to sell you stuff but once it breaks or its not as described they will find any reasons (burn marks, missing parts, missing cables, damaged box) to reject it and you ended up with a crap.
If it breaks again don't even try to go back.
These type of businesses deserve to die out.
Amazon/Ebay is the way to go!
Holy hell, why is it every time I come back to Slashdot this story has bubbled back up to the top of the page?
Yes, I've seen it, stop showing it to me at the top of the page.
Blake and Parris are part of a growing cottage industry where dealers acquire discarded items at very low prices, only to resell some of them back on Amazon and eBay at a premium.
It will remain a cottage industry because the overhead in doing this is rather steep for the most part. I used to own a company that sold overstock/surplus inventory and second hand goods and the cost (time mostly) of acquiring the inventory generally ate up most profit margin. A picker by himself/herself might be able to eek out an ok living but it doesn't really scale up well.
Ebay used to be people selling stuff they didn't want any more.
Still is. But there is a limit to the size of that market. And there is the problem that eBay is de-facto the biggest fence in the world for stolen merch.
About a decade ago it mostly switched to a marketplace for merchants.
That's because they reached the limit of the market for people selling surplus shit from their garage. If the company wanted to grow they needed alternative markets. The obvious answer was to go into retail. Problem for eBay is that Amazon does this REALLY well. Far better than eBay does with far less hassle and risk to the buyer. There are some deals to be had on eBay if you are willing to invest some time but seldom anything mind blowing.
They changed the rules around that time to make the feedback system a lot harsher and shift the balance in the buyer's favour.
True. I used to make my living on eBay but they made it basically impossible unless you are either a giant company with a well known brand or some solo guy in a garage selling random shit. They made it very difficult to fight bad feedback, they allow major brands to screw small sellers without evidence (because liability), they were raising auction fees like clockwork every 6-12 months, etc. If you pay with PayPal you can almost always return the item if you play by the rules even if the auction/sale says no returns. There are plenty of bad sellers but there are even more shady buyers out there and I got to see every permutation of shady buyer you can imagine.
Exactly. Just because someone took it out of the box and said oh shit, that's not what I wanted, doesn't make it "USED".
So what does make it "used" in your mind and how do you tell the difference? What bright line test can a retailer apply that scales up to large quantities of merch should they use? Remember that it has to be a test that a minimum wage clerk can apply reliably. This isn't a trivial question. Opening the packaging is a reasonable bright line test given that it's unlikely the merchant can test the item if it is returned after being opened and they probably can't sell it for full value. (would you pay full price for an item that looked like it had been tampered with? I wouldn't.)
If you as a seller deliver goods that are as stated and not defective, should limit the right for a buyer to return them.
Why? If I buy a shirt from a store for my daughter and then realize I got the wrong size why is it unreasonable for me to return it? Nothing wrong with the merchandise - just didn't fit the need. If the seller is benefiting from having allowing returns (and they do - that's why they do it) then where is the problem? If a store isn't willing to work with me on this why should I as a buyer shop there?
Why should the seller have to bear the cost of your fickle choice.
Sellers offer returns as a value added service to customers. Nobody forces them to do it but they often do because it results in greater net sales at the end of the day and because their competition often does it too to attract more sales. The hope is that the cost of the returns is less than the profit from the extra sales. You seriously think Walmart hasn't done the math on this? If it didn't pay off in the end they wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't buy a used hammer.
Really? I would. I might not pay full price but it's not hard to check a hammer for functionality. I buy used equipment all the time, much of it much more complicated than a hammer.
What possible reason could someone have for returning it other than it was defective?
Off the top of my head:
1) Bought as a gift and someone didn't need/want it
2) Wrong type of hammer for application
3) Intended for use on a job that didn't materialize
4) Found a better deal elsewhere
5) Buyer's remorse
6) Financial problems for buyer
7) Purchased wrong item by accident
There are almost innumerable reasons why someone might return something that have nothing to do with it being defective in any way.
Don't need a hammer head flying off and cracking my skull open.
If you are seriously worried about this then you probably aren't competent to use a hammer.
I used to shop A LOT at Micro Center, so I got to know the store manager pretty well. My return rate was always around 5%-10%, which they considered pretty normal. But they had one guy who's return rate was over 100%. The infuriating part to me is that he had to go over $10K in purchases before they banned him. Yes, you read that right, he returned Every. Single. Thing. he ever bought. But that's only 100%. Yup. They had an amnesty period when they first opened, where you could return things without a receipt, and he had returned an old copy of Microsoft Office. This was about 20 years ago or so, so it was a substantial amount of money. People like that really ought to be taken out back and shot.
People use to do the same thing with Radio Shack. Traveling cross country with another car, purchase two higher end walkie talkies then return them at the end destination. Same thing with GPSs when they were coming out.
"This is how I make other people pay for my stuff through higher prices."
TFTFY
P.S. Try politics - it'd be a good fit.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
One problem not being discussed is that the quality of new items is getting worse and worse.
I have received many items that were useless from brand new.
Retailers will knowingly sell defective items, aware that the consumers dislike the effort in returning them.
Retailer solution to further increase profits: make returning an item as difficult as possible.
Bundle this fraudulent practice along with rebate fulfillment.
When a business acquires enough negative press, shut down and re-open under a new name.
Angry? Yup.
BTW, notice that at least a few others agree with him according to the +5 Informative mod.
I don't think that modding Informative necessarily implies agreement. They might be saying 'Look what this giant DB is doing, be careful buying used or "refurbished" stuff.'.
I bought a touch free kitchen faucet from Amazon because the local big box store did not have one in stock and estimate for arrival was longer than Amazon's delivery time. When I got the box and opened the instruction booklet, there was a post-it note stuck between the pages describing some kind of drip problem. I foolishly started to install (removing my original kitchen sink faucet) and then discovered that a number of parts were missing. I contacted the manufacturer and they overnighted me the missing pieces. I completed the installation only to discover that the unit was not functioning properly. I contacted the manufacturer and they offered to send more parts, but I was not really sure which parts were bad so I went back to Amazon, communicated with customer service and ordered a replacement. That arrived and I was able to complete a working installation. Amazon discounted the first unit they shipped because it was obviously a returned and defective unit but following the return they refunded the discounted price. In the end I was unable to use my kitchen sink for about a week due to the problem with an Amazon purchase and got no compensation from them despite repeated assurances that the price for the second unit would be discounted.
It was about a month before I bought from Amazon again. And ever since I've done everything I can to purchase from other sellers when prices are not too far apart.
Never buy from/through Amazon if it's at all important to you that the item is genuine and/or new and factory sealed. The list includes phones, batteries, chargers, and guitars.
I have a factory sealed Samsung charger that is, in fact, a well-done fake that only delivers 500mA and runs hot. It was purchased as the regular search item for a realistic price.
In other words; we are our worst enemy. Almost everytime we try to do something to help others, there's always some people who will go above and beyond to take advantage of you.
Like "unlimited" broadband. ;-)
Same thing with buying stuff at Fry's Electronics. Maybe it's just my local store, but I've bought at least on item that, when I opened the box, was obviously returned. Other electronic items on the shelves were in taped-up (not new) packaging.
There are some sites that you can buy pallets of returned items from various stores such as Amazon. On one that I found they give you a complete list of what you are buying, the suggested retail price, the quantity of each item, and sometimes there's condition information and a reason why it was returned. Sometimes these stores just pack up the returns and sell it off because it's not worth their time to sort through.
I bought a new microwave from amazon once. I needed a specific model to replace the one I had so I wouldnâ(TM)t have to mess around with installing it. It came, and the box was in bad shape. Opened it, styrofoam was in pieces, some missing, microwave was damaged, really bad. I noticed the box had multiple shipping label packets.
Someone had bought it on Wayfair and then returned it. I know who and when because her information was all there, including the return label. Someone then bought it and tried to pass it off as new on Amazon.
They got a one-star review and I got a new microwave. An actual âoenewâ one.
Do you have ESP?
When you can just change the publication date? It not only safes the editors rephrasing an article, it also safes all of us from re-doing the comments. A great efficiency step in the history of Slashdot.
This article was posted two weeks ago and now reappearing as a dupe. Was the first one returned to Amazon?
"Used, damaged goods. We can't take him back." - St. Peter.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
....that this is a re-hashed thread.
What, did someone return it for a refund, and now you're shilling it as 'new content?
-Styopa
And this is why Retail stores try to "rip you off"
Lets get this down first. A company that is going to sell you something, is going to sell it as a price where after all expenses they will make a profit from it. So I don't want to hear why am I paying $500 for $30 worth of parts nonsense.
Retail stores try to keep a liberal return policy mostly to keep the customers happy. Because no one like buying a product that they didn't want or was broken when they opened the box. (I remember CompUSA giving me a hassle when I returned a 28.8bps internal modem. Because the maker decided to cut off the jumpers for the port and IRQ settings to make it a Win95 Plug and Play modem. As a Linux user I was pissed because I wanted to set it up just right, and not have the software guess for me. Then CompUSA gave me such a hassle. Until I pointed at the box showing the Picture on the box had jumpers and the actual device didn't. Now because I had to go threw that much hassle for a return, I no longer had much return business.
However returns cost the business money, and Remember the first rule of business to make profit. So the more you scam the company, the higher the prices are and the more you will get scammed. The company will setup the game for it to always win. So for your case, they may find that you are cheating the system and finally reject your return.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
These are awful people. The only cures for that kind of selfishness are death or having everything taken away from you so that you are humbled. There are so many of these leeches nowadays who don't see anything wrong with this.
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Msmash how did you post something on the 26th December that has comments from the 14th December?
Is it such a slow news day that you need to repost stuff?
This is not a new practice, and if you really think this is a 'painful' problem, it's pretty obvious you've never encountered even a minor, actual challenge in your life. Pure rubbish.
There will be consequences nazi faggot ken doll
My most recent experience with this problem was the purchase of mid-range headphones. ( ~$300 )
The box still had the seals in place, but when I got it home and pulled them from the box, it was obvious they had already been opened. A few pieces were missing and, upon closer inspection, there were hairs stuck to the earphone cups indicating these had been worn.
I ended up returning them to the store for another pair.
Retailers act surprised when I decline to take the floor or demo model and I tell them that I don't want the model that everyone has fondled, picked up and played with as the likelihood of said item having some issue requiring its return is too high. Especially if it's a high value item.
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Asshole cheapskate who says woooosh ???
Creimey Dumpty?