Don’t they just send back the covers? That’s what they do with books.
I don’t think so, because, unlike books shipped to a bookstore, newspaper distributors send their trucks directly to all retail outlets, so they don’t need to economize on the return shipping. But I’m no expert on this. I could be wrong.
My store does things like return damaged/unsold items items to vendors and bales cardboard for sale… but if a customer asks for boxes we give them, and managers are authorized to do some bargaining for damaged/clearance goods. Basically, balancing some good will with pennies we might otherwise earn. The company is financially in the black so it must be working.
Likewise, yesterday someone came in and asked for 100 paper grocery bags for a food drive. I said we’d have to run it by management, which we did, and management said sure, go ahead, ask them to credit us with the donation (bags supplied by [Our Store]). So the charity drive got 100 bags for free from us.
But as a cashier no, I don’t feel I have the authority to say OK to that. On the other hand, I did offer to ask about it with someone who could. The company does write off a certain amount every year for charitable contributions, and favors a lot of local organizations and charities for their stores so there’s at least a mechanism for this.
But that varies from one company to another - our polices are definitely different than Target’s or Wal-Mart’s or Home Depot’s or Costco’s. I’d say it never hurts to ask, but if the peon you’re talking to says “no” don’t blame them, they aren’t the ones that make the rules.
Free pallet, no way. Most of the pallets are leased by the store/company. They get stacked, inventoried and sent back to the owing company on a regular basis. Go behind any large store or supermarket and you’ll see the pallets stacked by color coding for inventory and return.
Pallet leasing - leased pallets - Google Search