Exposed: How Amazon destroys millions of new items it can’t sell

dailymail.com ^ | 5/12/2019 | J Bucks

[rktman]

Amazon destroys millions of brand-new items including televisions, books and nappies it cannot sell, an investigation has revealed.

Lorry-loads of goods, many still in their packaging, are dumped in sprawling landfill sites or incinerated. The shocking waste was revealed by undercover investigators who secretly filmed in one of the multi-billion-pound company’s enormous warehouses.

Reporters posing as Amazon workers discovered an area called the ‘destruction zone’ where they covertly filmed staff loading pristine toys, unused kitchen equipment and flat-screen TVs into skips to be transported to dumps.

[rktman]

Well, I guess someone learned that the landfill were only 50% full so decided to help out?

P.S. Ignore the trash on the dailymail side bar. LOL!

[\/\/ayne]

Seems like it would make more sense to drop-ship from the manufacturer. Then they would only make approximately what they need.

[KC_Lion]

Ping!

[captain_dave]

It makes sense for Amazon. If they gave away the items that didn’t sell, very soon they would have no customers. Amazon is in the business of selling goods, not storing goods.

[miss marmelstein]

Skips are dumpsters.

Can’t even donate new toys to charity.

[Conserv]

Just Damn.

They could give TVs and such to schools, veterans, women’s shelters, homeless shelters, youth centers, etc.

[ConservativeMind]

I don’t believe this is normal for Amazon in anyway.

Amazon normally puts unsold or returned goods on pallets which are auctioned. I’ve read articles on this.

https://www.directliquidation.com/liquidation-102/buy-amazon-customer-returns-pallets-online/

[Ciaphas Cain]

At least the millions of dollars of merchandise that Atari dumped in a landfill is worth money today.

[babble-on]

I would say one thing about the “Daily Mail:” it’s lower on the food chain than just about any paper in the UK. Sensationalized coverage and outright lies are not considered to be sins, far from it.

[precisionshootist]

What reason would there be that they could not sell a television or toys new in packaging? Clearly this story is leaving out critical information making the story BS.

[Paladin2]

"The reasons for the product returns are plenty and in fact, 30 percent of all online purchases get returned."

Sounds like a very high number.

[Paladin2]

"What reason would there be that they could not sell a television or toys new in packaging?"

It's likely returned.

[Vaquero]

I took a nappie once.

Ah the British

Nappies = Diapers

Bonnet = hood

Mouth = gob

Good thing we speak the same language

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We ordered a new Mac laptop yesterday. It is manufactured to order. If Amazon drop shipped stuff, you wouldn’t get it in 6 hours.

I’m surprised they don’t keep lowering prices until the stuff sells out. Maybe the volumes are just too high and they can’t get rid of it until the new season stuff arrives.

I’m sure they have PhDs optimizing sophisticated inventory, pricing, and supply chain models.

[9YearLurker]

They could donate them out of market.

[Chode]

here in the US they sell pallet loads of unsold stuff for $1000 and up depending on what's on it

there are lots of videos of people unpacking pallets showing what they got

[trad_anglican]

I recently got a refund from Amazon and they told me not to bother returning the item. It was an unusual item and I’m now guessing they didn’t want it taking up space in their warehouse.

[dsrtsage]

“Good thing we speak the same language”

The English may have invented the language,
But as usual it took Americans to fix and perfect it

[ChildOfThe60s]

The Daily Mail does some interesting stories but the web site is so annoying with pop up videos and crap that I no longer go there unless the story looks especially pertinent.

I have to spend a lot of time on the net researching product catalogs from my vendors, who have all gone to multiple non stop and un-pausable slide shows / carousels which are horribly distracting and of no value. I’m getting to where I hate the internet and am using only largely graphic free or static graphics sites such as Free Republic in my personal surfing.

Why is it companies and (some) web designers think that they can sell more products by annoying their customers? I told one supplier that unless they cleaned up their web site, I would no longer push their products to my customers because it was too annoying to spend any time on. I can usually get the same or similar products from multiple suppliers. Piss me off, I go somewhere else. Like they care - tone deaf marketing morons. Corporate America is incredibly dense.

Interesting factoid:
Front page slideshows have a less than 1% click through rate. And nearly all of those click throughs are only on the first slide. The rest of the frames get a click through rate of maybe .05%. Pretty ineffective marketing. I had a web marketing design person tell me they suggest their clients NOT to use automated slide shows and pop up videos and most of the clients still insist on it.