Where All Your Consumer Returns Go To Die: These Numbers Will Shock You!

 

As a consumer, you will inevitably find yourself in a place where an item you purchased was not what you needed or expected, and you have to return it. It could be a mistake on the seller’s part (maybe you ordered a blue item online, but got green), or it could be that you received two of the same item for your birthday and you need to return one.

Whatever the reason is, when you return an item to the store or back to its online facility– it is likely not going to end up back on the sales floor.

Because unless the retailer can confirm and easily verify the quality of the item, they will not risk putting that item back out.

How mad would you be if you bought a brand new, in box, $150 diaper genie, only to find a gross, used $20 diaper genie of a different brand inside the box? (YES, this has happened before!)

 

 

 

1. It is estimated that 30% of online sales are returned.

So… Amazon did 141 billion dollars in sales in 2018 alone– that’s 42 BILLION DOLLARS in returns. Yikes! And although some items can be resold by the manufacturer or retail store, most cannot.

2. On the low end, it is estimated that five billion pounds of your brand-new returns are ending up in landfills each year.

About 3.5 billion products.

And only about 20% of those are defective.

Are you doing the math?

That means that 2.8 million perfectly good, usable products fill up our landfills every year.

Manufacturers and retailers cannot keep the unsellable items in their warehouses because the cost to upkeep those items is high. Also, the cost to destroy these items and transport them to landfills is a price most companies don't want to budget for.

Manufacturers and retailers can recoup some of their losses from these items by selling them to liquidators, rather than spending the money to store or destroy them. It also increases the likelihood that brand items can be reintroduced to the market.

I am a reseller.

I’m just like you.

This is how I feed my family and part of how I try to save the environment.

Do me a favor.
Do the world a favor.
If you can, purchase resale!