Amazon UK Destroying Goods

the purple tin

I cannot believe the scale of this. Amazon are sending millions of perfectly good items, most of them unopened, to be destroyed or dumped every year because they have to keep constantly freeing up space in their warehouses.

The environmental impact of making and transporting all this gear around the world only to then have it destroyed must be huge.

Most of this stuff could go to charities, schools and libraries they are throwing away new laptops, tablets, power tools, smart TVs and books and thousands of unopened facemasks among other things.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds

the purple tin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxqz2g05MTI&t=1s


And this is just from one warehouse. If this is company policy around the world you could be looking at billions of items dumped or destroyed every year :eek:

markmoto

the purple tin wrote: »

I cannot believe the scale of this. Amazon are sending millions of perfectly good items, most of them unopened, to be destroyed or dumped every year because they have to keep constantly freeing up space in their warehouses.

The environmental impact of making and transporting all this gear around the world only to then have it destroyed must be huge.

Most of this stuff could go to charities, schools and libraries they are throwing away new laptops, tablets, power tools, smart TVs and books and thousands of unopened facemasks among other things.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds

its been like that for years, goods belong to private sellers who for one or another reason getting rid off in a most affordable way hence amazon can't do anything but to destroy too many legal issues otherwise. But yes good point we should vote to stop that.

magicbastarder

it's not uncommon for goods to be destroyed if they're not selling; manufacturers don't want to sell them at a price where they'll all sell because they're worried about cheapening their brand.

stooge

another Amazon related policy which should be noted here:

- they do not refund price difference for items which drop in price a few days after purchase

this means that the buyer has to send back their item, then reorder the exact same thing at the lower price. This doubles shipping, packaging, fuel and processing costs when the easiest thing could be to refund the difference.

I would say this is fairly common due to how frequently Amazon change their prices. Potentially millions if not billions in waste here also.

markmoto

magicbastarder wrote: »

it's not uncommon for goods to be destroyed if they're not selling; manufacturers don't want to sell them at a price where they'll all sell because they're worried about cheapening their brand.

As seller you have to pay lots of fees to Amazon the cheapest option to destroy, even selling at half price will cost more.

Gary kk

I heard it was dairy farmers fault that the world is going to burn.

hirondelle

Gary kk wrote: »

I heard it was dairy farmers fault that the world is going to burn.

A wonderful contribution to the thread. I tend to think the drivers for climate change are multiple and related, so yes Amazon, and yes dairy production are both involved.

zom

We poor people have to stop eating meat, driving cars and buying big houses - because... we are poor. Simple. It is all up to you if you do nothing and stay poor - or you get some brilliant idea and make multi billion fortune so will be allowed to waste millions of tons of products just for your fun.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117490339#Comment_117490339

That’s surely on the seller. You don’t have to do that.

ednwireland

‘I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this.’ jeff bezos after hs space flight.

that would rightly p*ss me off if i worked for amazon (i stopped buying from amazon some time ago)

grogi

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117490339#Comment_117490339

You would be surprised how often customers do not bother sending goods back, even if it doesn't work well for them.

Policy of not-refunding price difference ensures that huge majority of customers did pay more they could if they put more effort into it.

stooge

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640494#Comment_117640494

I tried with different CS reps a total of 5 times and found the same end result. sent back my product and received a refund (albeit which another 4-5 calls to CS to get my money after 3-4 weeks). Ordered the exact same product at reduced price in the meantime. absolute madness

Gary kk

I never thought to do such I generally just wait until I am prepared to pay for something I order . Guess it's something for everyone to bare in mind that to send something back for a few euros is really damaging to the environment. I mean forget what amazon could do and just do what you or I can.