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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.
Wal-Mart used to be the best. Way back in the olden days, when 56k modems were a thing, I bought one at the local Wal-Mart. Brand new, shrink-wrapped box. Got home, opened it up and inside was a block of wood, just the right size and weight.
Customer returns item
Put on new shrink-wrap and put back on shelf without actually checking the contents of the box
PROFIT!!
Got home, opened it up and inside was a block of wood, just the right size and weight.
That's why whenever I go shopping, I bring a power drill and only buy items if I drill into the box and no wood shavings end up on the bit.
You might wonder about general viability, but there are some routers I've bought in the past that could only be improved by a drill right through the circuits!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That brand new laptop I bought from Amazon had some user named "Bruce" on the login screen. They don't check shit.
Hey, what's your problem? What do you have against Bruce? What did he ever do to you?
The bottom always supports those above.
But then things fall apart; the centre cannot hold! Anarchy is loosed upon the world.
You're why retailers track our returns and sometimes decline them or ban you.
Nobody could lift it: except that buffed blonde guy with the eyepatch who delivered it.
Maybe it's because they made a mistake, or because they inventory items from 3rd party sellers who are less scrupulous, and you got that one.
1) Customer (A) returned item (X) as "broken."
2) Send (X) to customer (B) for confirmation that the item is broken.
3) Profit.
"His name was James Damore."