It is tempting, but I’m at the point in my life where I’m trying to reduce what I have, not add more junk. I used to love hitting up junk auctions, garage sales and flea markets when I was younger.
The was a recent pop up store here. BINS R US.
They had boxes and bins full of Amazon returns and misdelivereds.
It was fun to dig around in. My favorite was 1 cent books. Of course they were mostly Russian language. But there were a few treasures.
It’s an obstacle. It’s to prevent everybody from just claiming something is wrong with every purchase so they can get the refund.
By demanding that customers actually return the item, dishonest folks are dissuaded from being as dishonest as they otherwise would be.
Sure but Amazon gets pennies for the stuff they sell by the pallet.
It is if the small business seller is an “Amazon Seller” - a 3rd party that uses the Amazon platform to sell their stuff. If the seller is an “Amazon Vendor” - a place that sells their product outright to Amazon and then you buy direct from Amazon (often stocked in their warehouse), then the Amazon Vendor has already been charged upfront for potential losses. The company I worked for in 2016 was charged 20% off every purchase order for each distribution center truckful they bought from us. Didn’t matter if the loss was due to a return, or Amazon selling out-of-date product because they didn’t rotate their stock - they already received their lucre.
Yeah, I doubt if there’s any person looking at the details of what was ordered to say “We don’t need this $50 halloween costume returned but we do want this $50 dress returned”. It’s going to be based on price or random or most likely, some combination.
Amazon is generous with their return policy. But there are things they require you to return.
I found food items, personal use items they are quick to say toss it.
I recently ordered a glass honey dipper. I know, I know bad idea. Well it came broken twice. The third time they refunded me and sent me a new one. Came unbroken. It only lasted 3 days here. Dropped and broken in 3 pieces.
Yeah..dumb idea. Altogether.
I think it is unethical without an actual issue, which might indeed sometimes arise. Cue Seinfeld talking about the poor quality of Superman mask strings.
Correct, it used to be (like 10 years ago) returns forever & they would then sell that stuff in a quarterly or semi-annual ‘garage sale’ Just like a regular garage sale, it was sold as-is. Sometimes they would tell you what was wrong with it/why it was returned on the tag & sometimes you had to figure out if there was anything wrong with it or it was just returned because the customer didn’t like it for whatever reason.
I do remember seeing some aggressive soled/lugged hiking boots that were practically slicks, the soles were worn down that much. There’s no way in the world that someone could wear shoes that much & somehow find fault with them. If the soles are wearing too quickly for you, surely you’d recognize that when they’re halfway worn down. Some people returned stuff like that because that was the policy; they changed the policy because too many people took advantage of it. Someone like me who didn’t lost out because of those who did.
Separately, I was in Spirit Halloween last Tues, 10/28. At the register they told me that all purchases were no longer refundable, even if I wanted to bring it back the next day, still before Halloween; better make sure that size fits you in the store!
The notorious example is people returning dead Christmas trees to Costco in January. As a warehouse store, they may accept it, but will definitely put a note on your account, and blacklist you if you’re particularly egregious.
Most stores accept questionable returns because the small loss is not worth pissing off a customer with a legitimate concern. But many stores use the same returns management system, so you might find yourself on multiple stores’ shitlists. Usually this means multiple returns without receipt, where they can’t verify the original price to give an accurate refund and can only verify that they sell a similar product, but might be eating another location’s loss. I don’t think they care much for unused returns with receipt. My normal Home Depot shopping experience is to buy two sizes if I’m not sure what fits and return the other one later, this means I make 2 trips to HD rather than multiple to get one last thing I forgot previously.
And of course there’s the concern of another shopper filming you and posting it online.
More than this, a standard commercial bulk shoplifting technique is to steal an item then return it for a full “refund”. Much better ROI than selling it to a fence. The absence of a receipt is one of the indicia of a shoplifter.
Back when I was a heavy DIYer I used that same technique with a small refinement. I’d buy multiple sizes, two different tools, whatever. But I just left a couple Home Depot bags in my car trunk & put the leftovers and receipts in the bag(s). I’d be back a week or month later for another project and would bring in my returns then. IOW no special trip to return stuff. Returning was just the first thing I did when I got there again to buy more crap for the next project.
Boy I’m glad I rarely visit HD any more.