It's a perfect animal farm!
It got a fix in about 3 minutes, indoors, on a workbench, under 2 shelves of equipment and parts, in a part of a building with a double roof.
And that was the 5th generation chipset. We're on the 9th now, and they're much, much, much more sensitive.
All the habits and assumptions I learned with my 2002-era Garmin eTrex no longer apply.
The assumptions underlying the criticism of Amazon's and FedEx's strategy is that landfill costs and/or transportation costs do not represent the true cost to society.
If they try to repair an irreparable hard drive but throw perfectly good items like a bag they're quite dysfunctional.
And their inability to send all the ordered items in ONE package is irritating too.
What is this article about exactly?
* The privacy of consumers who might eventually buy some of the stuff stuffed with their trackers.
* The scene at 1:49 where it appears they put a tracker in a plastic bag inside something like a coffee kettle.
* Sticking a tracker to a kid's toy.
What the hell is wrong with these people? I get they wanted to do a great investigation, but this seems so wrong to me...
I don't share your concern here. CBC is a reputable org. They can just turn off the trackers if the items appear to be getting re-sold to an end-consumer. Even then, I don't think it would be a privacy violation for a journalist to go and talk to them and say "hey did you know this was a returned item?" etc.
If the kids toy made it into the hands of a kid without that tracker being noticed, I'd have deeper concerns. I.e. what's stopping someone from putting razorblades or some toxic checmical in a kids toy and returning it? Someone needs to check over returned items for basic quality, and should DEFINITELY notice the massive tracker.
Also, note they were expecting most or all of them to end up in landfills, them finding homes is an ideal outcome, but maybe not expected.
It also says something about the quality of returned merchandise and inspection of it: Amazon didn't find and remove the tracking devices, the products "looked fine" and were sent on their way. Perhaps that's one reason Amazon prefers to just toss stuff.
If the items were sensitive in some way (bondage equipment, say, or doctored home security equipment) then certainly.
That's disingenuous. I've never purchased "more than I need" from Amazon. But probably about 10% of items purchased for the first time simply aren't as advertised -- not Amazon's fault, but the manufacturer's. They don't meet the needs you bought them for, so you have no choice but to return them. And of course clothing is notorious, because manufacturers still insist on making up their own idiosyncratic definitions of S/M/L, when simply providing measurements in inches or centimeters would fix most problems. (Also color-accurate photography, for when the item listed and photographed as red turns out to be orange-pink.)
> "You're lucky if half of all returns can still be sold as new, so a huge amount of merchandise has to be dispositioned via some other means — liquidation, refurbishment, recycling, or landfill."
Yup, that's just how it works. That's why I buy a lot of stuff "open box" off eBay -- especially things like dongles, adapters, cheap peripherals. They all come from returns from places like Amazon and Best Buy, but are half the price. It's great.
This article isn't surprising, except for one data point about a single bag that wasn't resold. But they're probably hiring minimum-wage workers to categorize returns, who make errors.
There isn't really anything new in this article.
> That's disingenuous. I've never purchased "more than I need" from Amazon
It's a stretch to extrapolate from your singular experience to accuse the author of acting in bad faith.
Its called vanity sizing. Basically people buy more clothes if they don't feel like they are buying fat/anorexic size clothes.
My guess is you've never purchased clothes then. Regardless, this is your own individual experience and doesn't represent the trend as a whole.
* Out of twelve returned trackers, one of them went to landfill. The article focuses on that item and does not itemise the fate of the others.
* Adding a tracking device to a returned new product is tantamount to damage. If such a device is detected during returns processing, anyone with half a brain should immediately presume a malicious actor and have the item very carefully and securely assessed for disposal.
* Did not verify that the tracking device remained within the bag.
* "30-40 percent of online purchases are returned" what absolute hoopsla. I've worked in online commerce and this is off by an order of magnitude. A very few segments (e.g. shoes) may approach such return rates.
This crap is why journalism is in such disrepute.
But Amazon also refused to state what fraction of items go to landfill, despite making subjective claims that it's "on occasion" and the "vast majority" are liquidated or resold. If that was true, Amazon would have the data to back it up and would only benefit them to say so.
If we want to know the actual number of items that go to landfill, we don't need to send GPS trackers everywhere, we can just mandate Amazon (and all other companies) to report on that. It's not like they don't have the data.
NB: don't assume that there's no downside to any given retailer unilaterally disclosing their return rates, because returns are a measurable factor in marginal cost & revenue assessment and partially describe both the elasticity of demand and overall customer sentiment. Every retailer of scale would be interested in obtaining the return statistics (especially segmented) of their competitors; and, as the tone of the article illustrates, there are any number of hacks poised to scribble out mendacious venom on the basis of such data, so no corporate PR lackey worth their communications degree will willingly start that conversation.
Absolutely.
> and would only benefit them to say so.
Not nearly as obvious. It might have some PR benefits (this week, until later when public opinion shifts), but it also provides information about their business that they may prefer to not share (off the top of my head, it probably leaks something about defect rates and their quality controls).
Recently I had received a dented cooktop and since it was functional and my family isn't too much interested in aesthetics, Amazon offered 30% refund to keep it.
I think I am doing my part to prevent these products from ending up in landfill.
Amazon also honours refund and return request, but not all time I request it.
It's still better than offline shop experience where I've to deal with a real person making weird faces which I find hard to interpret.
I expect Amazon likely outsources a lot of returns handling, so they may not have that data.
> "30-40 percent of online purchases are returned" what absolute hoopsla. I've worked in online commerce and this is off by an order of magnitude. A very few segments (e.g. shoes) may approach such return rates.
In the online retail world, a 30-40% return rate is common for apparel (clothes), shoes and accessory purchases. Certain categories, such as occasion (wedding, party, etc) could be significantly higher than 40%.
Source: I was an executive at a Nordstrom subsidiary for many years.
I've seen a lot of people on HN complain after receiving counterfeit items or "new" goods that were obviously someone else's returns. I wonder what the Venn diagram would look like of those individuals and the ones who are outraged now.
Amazon is welcome to sell these returns instead of throwing them away that’s not the issue. The problem was that they sell something as new when it’s been opened and used. I think no one would have an issue with it if the returned items were sold as such for a discount.
And this is from the Canadian Broadcasting Company - Canada's gov't funded TV/radio/print news service, not some fly by night organization focused on spitting out content to maximize ad impressions.
Doesn't give you much hope for quality reporting if they can't get it right.
CBC is definitely a mixed bag. Marketplace is amongst their worst.
That seems almost an order of magnitude higher than I’d expect. Setting aside kids shoes (which probably do get 50% returned), I can’t imagine sending back even 5% of my online purchases, let alone 30-40%.
I think I’ve sent back exactly 1 Amazon order in the last year, out of nearly 100.
Seems like exactly the sort of competitive strategy I’d expect from the “off-price” stores (TJ Maxx in the US, Winner’s in Canada, etc.).
It's way scarier the stuff they send directly to landfill. I know someone that works in chemical waste disposal and they had a deal with Walmart to take care of it all (I'm pretty sure they still do). She was taking back some pretty nice stuff that could easily be sold pretty easily.
People buying returned stuff in bulk and seeing what happens, kinda similar to people buying rented warehouses when the lease expires.
They are still super useful to find those hard to get parts that would typically be impossible to find locally or at least very expensive. Like a carburetor for a chainsaw or a part for an appliance, bearings for a hood fan motor, monitor arm, etc.
A lot of retailers have picked up their game when it comes to online shopping. Places like rockauto.com for auto parts are super competitive and offer a massive inventory (what a great acquisition it would be for AMZN to break into the auto parts sector). Newegg/MicroCenter for PC parts, Costco, etc.
But over all I can't remember the last time I had to return anything and my experience over the last 20 years has been a positive one.
I went out on a date with a program manager for one of Amazon’s return programs and she told me her job was basically finding out ways to repurpose returns as cheaply as possible. Apparently destroying and dumping it’s the easiest and least resource consuming way to deal with returns.
In a similar note, search for Amazon Warehouse. That’s one of their programs for returned merchandise and sometimes I have found insane deals there. But you gotta check often.
If we're going to fix something, it really aught to be food waste!
The amount of food that gets disposed of daily - while millions go hungry - is humanities greatest issue - not unwanted coveralls.
This is one of those situations where saying "this problem isn't important, look at X," isn't the best strategy. We have to solve _waste_ in general. Different types will have different solutions.
It's all about directing (our extremely limited) focus on issues with a higher priority. Food insecurity (even in North America) is a significantly bigger problem than Amazon returns.
there are also several issue with how the return may go. amazon may tell you to just keep the item (if the cost of shipping + processing the return is higher that the actual product price / margin on the item). they may decide that the item is in not good condition when it comes back. the packaging may be missing parts or damaged. i would guess that a lot of items don’t make it through the process.
also i would guess that because Amazon keeps existing and making a profit they have this baked into their business model. Also I would be shocked if the return rate is 30-40%. Again guessing, I would say it’s probably 1-2%. A lot of people buy shit they don’t need and keep it.
As far as “hacking the system” I think that they should have a system in place to track how many things you return (and if they were in good condition/could be resold) and how much money they made on your purchases. If overall you’re a net negative I would not be surprised if your account got suspended/banned. Why would they do business with you if you’re a bad actor?
I also wonder how much is handled by weight. Weight of returned product != expected weight of product -> something is off and it's probably not worth figuring out.
We threw items in the bin from a distance, so they were definitely unsellable. I'm sure that lots of merchandise that would have been functional/sellable ended up being thrown out.
I am disappointed by CBC making a click bait Amazon story, when it is actually the story of retail that our unconscious civilization ignores. CBC does mention this later in the article.
What the hell? I rarely return either, but find myself returning online merchandise even less often than brick and mortar simply because of the inconvenience of managing packing and shipping.
How are people returning 30-40% of everything they purchase online?
The important part of this article is the critique of the powerful monopolistic corporate player, Amazon:
"[Amazon] did write the playbook on free returns, says Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, a global marketing and advertising agency.
The tactic of enticing customers to buy more than they need and return what they don't want "has had tragic repercussions for the environment and business," he says."
It seems to me like the HN community sometimes nitpicks over tiny details and fails to take part in the larger systemic critiques. Are there others who are also frustrated by the lack of larger, systemic critiques?
So the seller ends up having to take the loss?
With these returned items, the seller just loses money and has a lower income than if they could resell them.
Their tax goes down because of returns, but that's just normal income tax because their income goes down.
If they didn't donate the goods, just threw them away, they would pay exactly the same tax. So there is no tax benefit gained from donating.
Would love to stop subsidizing the indecisive, the scammers, the people who can't bother to research products before they buy, etc.
Giving money--even indirectly--to poor people makes economic sense because they'll spend it on goods and services that keep other people employed.
Punishing the poor out of some moral imperative is economically destructive.
The reporting seems oblivious to the cost of humans making resell/reuse/repair/recycle/disposal decisions at this scale.
In 2020 I've returned ~5%:
markers that were dry
test clips with mislabeled quantity
de-laminated screen protector sheet
mislabeled thermal printer (photo, listing said it had an internal spool compartment but it didn't)
cell-phone arm stand that lacked the spring tension, even adjusted to maximum, to hold up my small, un-cased Google Pixel
* Showerhead that came without box, and clearly used. It still had a lot of water inside!
* Underwear from a brand that sells items inside a sealed bag and discards returns came used, without bag (yuck!)
* A module of Samsung RAM had visible wear signs and didn't work
* Cycling glasses came without box and several missing items
The underwear thing upset me so much I emailed Jeff Bezos. After lots of emails forwarded around, nothing happened.
It's sad because they used to be good. But the number of returned and counterfeit items sold as new is mindboggling.
Last year I bought two Levis jeans at the same time. One the exact same model, color and size as the one I was wearing which was worn out, the other a different color (figured I could use having two pairs of jeans). None fit me correctly. The model I had already was too big, the other too small. Sent both of them back and made the effort to go to a brick and mortar store where I could try them. Turns out the sizes had changed or something. I ended up with a different cut, as the model I had was either too tight on the legs or too wide at the waist...
That and the anti-pattern of using Amazon as a quasi-tool-rental outlet where they buy something for a project, use it, and then return it after the project is done. The 'borrowing' aspect was also an issue at Fry's in the Bay Area where test equipment that they sold would have been used already.
Of the two I think the 'borrowing' pattern to be pretty unscrupulous. I see the buy a bunch and return the ones you won't use/wear/eat what ever is more along the lines of the store fitting room approach.
Now, IMO, ordering clothes (and shoes, or anything you're supposed to wear and where fit is important - at least important for a substantial demographic) through online shopping just doesn't seem to make as much sense as other things.
I personally rarely buy online unless I'm talking about staples like shirt and tees that I've tried from certain brands and know how it fits (so don't need returning).
As with other things... this huge shift to online ordering may make from efficiency perspective only when you ignore externalities and subsidies.
I hope we go back to shopping malls for clothing and fitted purchases.
I always felt bad about returns, but my SO worked retail in school and assured me this is how it's designed to be and how every big shopper does it.
And I don't blame returners. There used to be a website that listed variance in sizes from major clothing brands and fashion lines, and it can be huge. If I like a cut of jeans or slacks, I have to try on several, and they without fail will not fit the same.
It's simply not possible to be sure about a shoe size sight unseen. Even within the same brand of shoe, fit varies. I have to assume a very high returns rate is totally expected by online shoe retailers (and for that matter offline ones).
Anything over 2% returns to me generally indicates to me that something is wrong with the product or the product description is not clear enough.
In fact having a 30-40% return rate with a high enough volume will get a buyer banned from Amazon.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers...
Basically, the industry needs some standards to help with all this waste.
In shops, you can try them on. Online, I think it's unavoidable that people try them on at home and send more than half of their clothes purchases back.
Standardisation in the clothing business seems incredibly unlikely. And even when the size is technically correct, it can still be too uncomfortable. You just never know until you try it on.
If you want a truly universal sizing standard that will always guarantee correct sizes, it's going to have to be a lot more detailed than just one or two numbers. It would be a data dump nobody can remember. It might be interesting to have an online service that would remember such detailed sizing info for you and could produce clothes on demand with perfect fit.
They futz with sizing because it's a part of their marketing. Fashion targeting older/ fatter people will have smaller sizing to flatter the customers.
I think buying clothes that don't fit just because you want to say it's a particular size is far more a part of female culture (in my social circles in the UK): womens' clothes are in "sizes", men's clothes are in measurements (inches/cms).
I don't think the industry, nor many of the customers for female fashion want accurate measurement-based sizing.
Neither do men's attire. Even sizes that are meant to be standard (like the British/Italian/EU systems for shirt, jacket and pants sizing) aren't.
I don't buy anything from sellers that don't explicitly give the dimensions in centimetres anymore (which has become standard practice).
Considering the inbound shipping costs to the fulfillment center, the storage and handling costs, hard cost of the finished good, the cost of returning the item from Amazon to the merchant if it is deemed to no longer be "New" (or the choice by the merchant to destroy) plus Amazon's commission of 15-20% depending on the item category, a 30-40% return rate would make one's business unviable at best and bankrupt at worst.
Amazon's retail business has poor profitability.
A trend I observed here among college students is buying clothes for a party or instagram selfie and then returning it.
Small sellers get screwed pretty hard. You should check their forums.
I can't even begin to comprehend how desperate they must be to look good and fit in.
Ok, yeah, so buying something and finding a creative way to hide the tag so you can wear it to a single event and then return it is common enough that it's a decades-old TV/movie trope, but... buying something just to take a selfie for Instagram and then return it? What has the world come to...
I for one have the unfortunate problem that my clothing size is somewhere between M and L. Whenever I buy from a new manufacturer, I basically have to flip a coin if I pick the right one. So for some clothing products, I would definitely hit 50%.
I have the same problem with my 200cm and slim posture. I have a handful of brands I can order blindly, but jeans in particular are a chore to get the right fit. I strongly prefer brick and mortar shops, but size availability varies.
People used to think that returned goods would just be freshened up and sold again — just like clothing you try on in a brick and mortar store — but the reality of the system is slowly getting understood thanks to investigative journalism worldwide.
A Dutch television program in this category concluded that returned clothes that are in good condition are often bound for for markets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where there is a demand for brand goods below or at the price of lower quality Chinese imports. Some brands don't want this because of brand dilution and fear of their products hitting the black market, so those items are simply destroyed instead.
Suggested solutions include charging a fee for returns, but that will have to be mandatory because people will just shop where the returns are free if left optional.
Personally I would like to see high street shops offer the option of trying on clothing ordered online at their shop for free (or others even if a good business model can be found), and have them handle the returns instead of this grossly unsustainable system we have now. By eliminating the risk of people abusing the system, the need to remove those items from the chain is diminished significantly; just like regular clothes shopping, but with the benefit of a much larger catalogue.
"""
Try before you buy. Exclusively for Prime Members.
1. Choose up to 8 items.
2. Only pay for what you keep.
3. Free and easy returns.
"""
People who pay for Prime do it specifically because it facilitates the way they shop. They buy a lot of stuff, figure out what they want, like, and need, and send the rest back.
It's completely normal, expected behavior in retail apparently.
Particularly in clothing.
From what I understand it is a relatively common practice to order 2-3 of a given item in different sizes, and to return the ones that don't fit.
And this is just the "honest returners", not even going into the whole "order this fancy clothing, wear it to a party, and then return it" "dishonest returners"
Part of this is because people will buy several sizes of the same item and return the ones that don't fit. The other part is people wearing it once then returning it.
The reasons I return items is usually false advertising. I used to spend hours reading reviews and product specs before buying. But now I don't have time to sift through reviews. And of course, fake reviews make it harder.
So all I got is maker's ads and if ads are lying then I don't feel guilty returning an item.
It seems most people have an attitude that if a buyer got duped with false advertisements then it is buyer's fault.
For the year 2020 (so far):
Amazon Orders: 231
Returns: 38
Return Percent: 16.45
Based on Gmail search:
amazon "your refund" after:2020/01/01 before:2021/01/01
For the year 2019:
Amazon Orders: 32
Returns: 11
Return Percent: 34.3
Based on Gmail search:
amazon "your refund" after:2019/01/01 before:2020/01/01
A couple of things to note, 2019 I was mostly buying and returning bras, shorts and shirts that my wife was trying on, because Target and other stores stopped carrying some of her favorites. Some of these clothing purchases actually spilled into early 2020.
2020 I am returning things a lot less because it's a lot of Pantry orders.
Compared to me: I have placed 197 Amazon orders since 2013, and have had 13 returns so far.
I have bought hundreds of items on Amazon and never had to send back any. I bought thousands, of different types, on other services and I only ever had to send back two and that due to the fact the seller sent a wrong item.
I always do at least a very quick research regarding the seller and the item so that probably helps.
But the 30% I can understand is due to people who never intend to buy the product or buy a bunch of them to send some back.
I can sort of understand it in some of the categories (for example clothes) but I also see a lot of people proclaiming how smart they are because they surf on the wave of products they never pay for.
I do think that anything they cannot process properly should be handed off to charity groups who would get items in exchange for helping sort it all out. Then again, having seen my local St Vincents and Goodwill they to suffer overflow but at least with Amazon returns the items would be newer
I used prime for about a year, had probably a 50% return rate and ended up cancelling. Their items are so low quality it's not worth the effort.
And there are the Samyang/Rokinon camera lenses as well -- you need to usually buy 3-4, test them out and keep the sharpest copy. Quality control issues on the manufacturer's side but it's a good deal if you're willing to deal with it.
Some sellers just suck at packaging. There are numerous products that are too easy to damage just by opening the packaging -- I received one item completely wrapped in 8 layers of bubble wrap followed by an entire coating of packing tape over 100% of it. It was nearly impossible to cut open without cutting into wires because you really don't know where the wires are under all that packaging.
Not the least resource consuming - the least costly to amazon. There is a massive environmental cost to the practice - it's just externalized. If the companies involved (amazon, the manufacturer) had to bare the full environmental cost, the calculation would often come out different.
I suspect that cost is a much better approximation of resource consumption than what feels wasteful, especially because it forces you to factor human time as a resource, which many environmental activists like to treat as infinite and free.
The environmental impact is big! I hope this is being considered in their Climate Pledge.
The big bottleneck in Amazon's process is probably, among others, how inefficient it would be to restock individual items in the warehouse.
Of course, in the Vietnam War, the corporations back in the US who were making huge profits in supplying the war weren't at all worried about equipment being wasted overseas and not returned. And so we're back at the US military industrial complex and all of its unethical madness, famously satirised by Heller in Catch-22.
Why can't returned goods be resold as "open box" or "scratch and dent" products with missing or damaged packaging for a significant discount? Surely making some money is better than paying to dispose of it - not to mention the terrible optics when you get caught.
Most likely because a person has to carefully inspect and repackage it (expensive and the volume is large) and it's a separate inventory category that has to be managed and have separate storage space allocated for it (another expense) and, on top of all that, it doesn't bring in as much money as a new item. And if there was some problem or damage that wasn't caught by the inspection, it's yet another return.
The difficulty of managing customer returned items is common to all retailers and has been known for a while, e.g.:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/10/growing-online-sales-means-m...
https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/26/news/retail-returns-landfil...
They used to routinely ask the customer to destroy and dump the items, which was certainly less marginally costly. (If it encouraged more abuse, that cost is borne by other business units)
Can't do that with e.g. counterfeits though, or with products that may be dangerous.
And not everything is resellable in practice. To resell something you need to 1. determine what you have (not just the product but also the state it is in), 2. have someone who wants it, 3. that person needs to be willing to accept the risk of getting a used/substandard product (higher risk of it arriving broken), 4. you have to find that person, 5. you have to get the product to that person, 6. you have to manage the whole overhead of the process (additional shipping, sorting, testing, ...).
Each of these steps is associated with costs, both financial and environmental (the latter will skyrocket as soon as you start e.g. attributing some of the environmental footprint of the people whose labor you spend on these tasks to those tasks).
It's very unlikely that Amazon wouldn't optimize something so obvious.
Once the returns are generated, there's probably not much of a better way to deal with it. However, if you ban returns, online shopping becomes less attractive - people will use retail stores again. Which also toss stuff that doesn't sell, use a lot more real estate, air conditioning, and again, human labor. There's a reason online is often cheaper, and it may well be "cheaper" (better) for the environment too, despite the waste.
First problem: When do you credit the refund?
If you credit it right away, what happens if the customer subsequently loses the item? Even assuming you can simply rebill them, you've still pissed off the new purchaser who was expecting that item to be available.
If you don't issue the refund until the new buyer confirms receipt (which aligns some incentives of your returner) then what happens if it takes months to sell? Defer too long and you've pissed off the old customer and effectively reneged on your return policy (not to mention forced them to store your item without compensation).
Next problem: How do you apportion blame if old customer says they sent it in good condition and new customer says it arrived damaged? You have no way of knowing who's right. Do you just write it off?
My gut says you'll run into more issues as you flesh this out. e.g. The "speediness" of your brand will tarnish when customers drag their heels to ship things out (sorry, I'm on vacation, will have to wait until i get back). Human nature will tempt people to "borrow" the item while they're holding onto it for you. If you thought inventory control was hard with a bunch of warehouses fully under your control, imagine what it'll be like after you crowdsource it out to a bunch of consumers.
Amazon already let's you just keep low-value items that cost more to ship back than they're worth. The upside of your idea to Amazon seems small, and I see so much opportunity for abuse.
If you think you can solve the challenges, maybe you can launch a decentralized inventory startup. Would be worth a ton if you do manage to get it to work.
Amazon is very customer-centric company. Given the huge pain this kind of system could cause for customers is my guess why they haven't rolled-out any attempts at a solution to the general public.
It's a fascinating problem to me. I've been buying/selling on eBay for 10 years. I also sell on Facebook marketplace for hard-to-ship items. I've learned that if you buy and sell used, you can essentially rent certain things for very cheap, which is a problem set and solution that has a lot in common with amazon's product return problem.
People are very clever in figuring out ways to defraud companies, so if I was Amazon I'd be skeptical about giving out information about internal processes without a very good reason to.
On the other hand, it's probably not a good idea to be kept in the dark regarding how major sectors of the economy function, with only the word of corporate PR departments to go on that everything is fine.
Amazon does have all the data, downto the individual returns, about the processing, decission, reason codes and final fate (sodl as new, warehouse deal, sold as used or liquidated, donated,...). They also have every reason to not share that data publicly.
And the EU actually mandates a free 2-week return window based on the fact that you can't see the product before you buy.
I personally never send anything back, if I dont like it I just make do and complain.
Likewise the cost of pollution from all the shipping and manufacturing of the old and new items and returns is (almost) completely not bourne by Amazon.
I don't know exactly how it would balance in the end. It probably depends both on the type of goods and a lot on local circumstances. But don't take for granted that this is worse than it was before.
Also, I wonder if you can catch it with batteries. Does amazon make the seller list the type of battery in their product?
it’s also probably borderline illegal to do this kind of things
There's an article about the US Air Force and the "average pilot" https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
The gist of it is: The average pilot doesn't exists.
I'd assume it's not much different with clothing. While the length for instance may fit, the shape of a sleeve or trouser leg may prevent you from wearing it comfortably. You'd need a insane amount of measurement from each part of the body.
That being said, I do feel like the clothing industry could be doing better than they currently are.
But everything would have to be pretty much tailor made. If you could do that on demand and automated, taking into account all these factors and making it as personalised as possible, that might really cut back on some clothes waste. But I have no idea whether this is technically possible, and it's definitely going to be a hard problem to solve.
I'd assume similar services exist in other places, and the clothes may be sent to multiple customers.
I'm more concerned now since who knows with the virus what the right way of possibly sanitizing a mattress would take that nobody will be taking them for a while.
I'm missing the larger critique. Are you ok with this waste?
I guess sometimes it seems to me like the HN community nitpicks over tiny details and fails to take part in the larger systemic critiques.
On the contrary it tends to cause exactly those firms who'd be most intrinsically part of the solution (and whose employees most certainly would love to say "we're part of the solution", because they are not the sociopaths some would paint them as) to get their backs against the wall, since anyone even participating in the discussion makes themselves primarily a target for invective.
I guess the industry knows that the only way to sell clothes online is having more than half of them returned, no questions asked. It is probably cheaper than having physical stores to try them out, or even than standardizing clothes sizing: just let the client order the item in two or three sizes and return the ones that don't fit.
Think about it, the US has "anti-dumping" laws to protect US manufacturers, but we "dump" into other countries all the time in the form of "aid".
I think the African people have more to worry about than supporting local clothing makers. The fact that they can be clothed cheaply allows them to concentrate on other problems they are facing.
See: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Even in cases where I told them I broke a piece in a kit, they didn’t seem to care and it looked like the kit was going right back into stock to me.
Parts store do it because it gets you in the door to buy parts. If the lending was done through the mail, I’m sure Amazon would sell more parts, but it’s not clear it would be enough more profit to cover 2-way (or 4-way if a tool was broken) shipping on the tools.
1. It’s being hidden from consumers, who might adapt their behavior if they knew a return meant the trash.
2. Stuff is shipped back to amazon and then disposed of.
If we had things like carbon taxes on goods, then amazon's decision would likely be much more optimal for the environment.
If that were priced into the crap, I'm sure having some humans spend a few of their hours on repurpuosing it would make financial sense.
Also not priced in is the environmental cost of discarding the assembled product.
Edit: I might add that in the cost of digging up resources, in many cases the lives of the people doing the digging are not valued much more than the hours of the people doing the sorting of returned items. So that's something to think about as well.
Yes, absolutely, and there is plenty of evidence that a lot of this aid keeps Africa in extreme poverty.
This is not an extreme, or at this point even a particularly unusual, viewpoint. Some other sources that argue, convincingly in my opinion, why much of the aid given to Africa over the past 50 years has been counterproductive:
https://youtu.be/Jv4cAVzC8xM - good video about a Ghanaian entrepreneur and how NGO aid hurts the economic development of his country
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/13/why-t...
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/-gYxhXHjOckC?hl=en
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2019/08/05/afri...
And to counter my earlier point, it makes sense globally if you value profit the same everywhere. But profit made by people in low income is worth a lot more. So are capital investments by those people.
This is the result of those people 'consuming more'. In more humane terms, this is the result of poor people having more of a need for money. But that is 2 different ways of saying the same thing.
https://www.brunswicktoollibrary.org
It's pretty cheap (AUS$85/yr), and AFAIK they have about 400 members. Though Melbourne is currently in a coronavirus lockdown so everything is closed. :(
Regarding broken/incomplete tools, (prior to the lockdown) they had a day every week or two set aside to go through and fix broken/worn tools (etc).
Seems like a good solution to the tool sharing problem, and it seems to work well for everyone.
Just to add to that, without carbon pricing the cost of digging up contains the fuel cost, but not the cost of emissions associated with burning that fuel to dig + process
The closest I had to a problem was when I sent an email stating that a product is not functional after a year and a half. They replied that the 30 days return window is over and that I should contact the producer.
I replied that according to the law, I have 2 years of warranty with zero costs from my side. They replied that are very sorry for the misunderstanding (or something like that), together with a return slip.
Teh second one would probably be when I was suggested to test Amazon Prime and I was charged 50€ right away. I replied this is a test. They replied that I actually signed for Prime, that it was not a test.
To what I replied it was, to what they replied they will reimburse me 50€ minus the fast shipping costs (that would otherwise be included in Prime). To what I replied i was really unhappy. To what they replied that 50€ are on their way to may credit card.
This is one of the reasons I buy with Amazon without much fear.
Also, Amazon returns are refunded as soon as the package is scanned at the post office, not 2 or 3 weeks after.
I'd really like to buy from a French company, but every time I try, they go out of their way to send me back to Amazon.
Also, in Netherland, Amazon isn't all that big. In the distant past, I sometimes ordered at amazon.com, later at amazon.de. Recently I got an invitation to amazon.nl which apparently just opened, but I really don't see the point. Netherland already had a couple of big online retailers: bol.com and coolbue. They're good, fast, reliable. I don't need Amazon anymore.
Bad experiences stick with people and they are more likely to write about it. Like the one time I ordered Harmon Kardon subwoofer from newegg like 15 years ago and it came entirely missing it's outer case, and neither newegg not Harmon Kardon (I went in person to their service center) would accept the return. It made me skeptical of ordering from newegg for a while, and it was unusual and annoying enough that I still remember it to write about.
Customer support switched to Indian contractor companies and it is not as nice anymore. Reviews became useless and downright harmful. I have gotten many incorrect items from their fulfilment program in the last 2 years. I never got any before it.
6 or 7 years ago there was a much higher proportion of items actually sold by Amazon. Now it's a morass of third-party sellers with inaccurate listings to the point that even just finding an item is quite a choice. I recently gave up trying to buy kitchen knives because most listings had no OEM part number, a vague description and photo and people arguing in the Q&A section about basic features like whether it had a serrated edge or not.
Amazon has become a dumping ground for people who buy things on Alibaba, at liquidation or even just at Costco and try to resell for a markup. Even a search for basic consumer products like a box of cereal will have the top results be these kinds of sellers. For instance, I just searched for "ichiban noodles" (a popular international brand of instant noodles that can be found for <$1/each in any grocery store in Canada). The top result is a pack of 8 for $27!
Yes, Amazon still replaces or refunds almost anything that you have an issue with, but I'd rather just get the thing I wanted the first time.
A perfect of example of this is a picture frame I bought from Amazon (or rather, third party seller fulfilled by Amazon). It arrived damaged because it was thrown into a too-large box with no padding. I notified Amazon and they sent another one. It arrived identically packaged and also damaged. Then I asked for a refund. At this point, almost a month had passed and I still didn't have a picture frame, despite a huge amount of resources having been consumed by Amazon.
No store that actually has to bear the cost of returns themselves would do that, but Amazon made out like kings on the transaction: they got a cut of the original purchase, their FBA fees, then got to charge the seller for disposal of a broken item - twice!
And Amazon in Canada does not stock or sell food items at competitive prices if at all. They barely sell a small number of Whole Foods items online. I generally buy local for most food items, except maybe bulk supplements or household items. Some things, especially now under lockdown, you can only find easily on Amazon...
Aside from that, everything has been great but I also never order clothes from Amazon.
In recent memory, I've had only one bad experience with a 3rd party seller not shipping the item I ordered. Oddly, I ordered twice before from them (through Amazon) and never had an issue. Something changed in the months leading up to the third purchase, because their reviews went from overwhelmingly positive to overwhelmingly negative, and I'm not sure COVID-19 would completely explain it (or maybe it does?). Two months after not receiving the purchase, I sent a dispute to Amazon and they refunded it in full. Can't complain.
I did have a product arrive damaged (actually a pack of two; one was fine). Amazon refunded the entire purchase price for both saying they couldn't do partial refunds (understandable).
Of the couple of other mistakes I can think of, they'd once sent the wrong item (a consumable) and also refunded without fuss, suggesting I should just dispose of the mistaken item as I saw fit. The other one was a carafe for frothing milk for cappuccinos that didn't arrive at all. IIRC, they refunded and sent a replacement the same day I emailed. Also had a hard drive show up with surface defects (placed in an unnecessarily large box and almost certainly got beat up during shipping), and I got a return label that same day with UPS showing up about a day later to pick it up. (Bonus: I know the usual UPS driver, so it was good to see him!)
Never have bought many clothing items from Amazon recently except for neck ties. Watching some YT channels that purchase from Amazon-related liquidators[2], the negative experiences with clothing and personal hygiene don't really surprise me. Worth watching, but be prepared to be somewhat terrified and maybe a little grossed out.
[1] I once bought a laptop cooling tray from Walmart out of curiosity. The quality was roughly what you'd expect. The USB cable failed after about a month of use (poorly terminated no doubt) and the tray is of the lowest quality manufacture you can imagine. Ironically, it was more expensive than better quality options off Amazon...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Xi9F_8Sr1-1bKRDlCO1ZA
Everything else was 100% down to the manufacturer or negligent Marketplace seller.
I have tons of valid complaints about the shitty search engine, the poor quality of filters, the dark patterns pushing shit and the over-abundance of third-party Chinese crap, but Amazon still is more reliable and friction-less than the vast majority of e-tailers.
This being said the other sites have gotten much better (not much choice), to the point Amazon isn't my one-stop-shop anymore (as it would have been five or ten years ago).
Fake products are the necessary sacrifices we have to make in order to be fulfilled by Amazon. Quality control (like moderation or ethics) just doesn't scale, and we must maintain infinite growth at all cost.
Just this year I'm on 108 orders and counting, every
single one of them was fine, working, definitely not
used, definitely not counterfeit
I've also never really heard anybody else complaining about problems with Amazon either. I have a pretty large extended social circle, and I just don't hear any problems.
I 100% believe those who say they have these problems! I'm just trying to put things in perspective.
As for their own brands like thier tablets, they are probably worse quality than some counterfeits/awful brands. They have nasty cheap parts, for example the usb power port breaks in no time. I made the mistake of shopping for that non-amazon brand tablet for yesterday, but what a seriously shoddy company, for many reasons.
I will say that "definitely not counterfeit" is a very high bar these days. I have a pair of Ray Bans that I'm still on the fence about after several years.
They are responsive to regulatory action - when I filed a complaint about COVID related price gouging via my state attorney general’s office, they acted within two hours of receipt. A firm hand is effective.
I do avoid clothes though, it's difficult to find ones that are shaped correctly for my body, so I go in-person to a local store, buy ones that fit, then order more of the same style from their site online using the SKU.
I don't doubt that the problems described by others are real, but I think there's a lot of variance in the number and kind of problems people actually see.
The underwear issue was with Amazon US, and RAM with Amazon DE. But I've found Amazon UK quite problematic too.
I know it's a caveat emptor environment, but it's worked for me. It's eBay that I have to watch like a hawk (just assume if you buy an electronic component, you have at best a 50-50 chance of it not being crap). I'm curious as to the wide variety of experiences I see from others.
Plus, I support local people.
https://www.amazon.com/prime-wardrobe/b/?ie=UTF8&node=148071...
How much water could a showerhead even hold. Certainly not a lot?
Isn't it clear from the premises that that whole online thing is treacherous at best for the environment, our environment ?
I can understand the convenience, buying stuff you don't find in your local shops, etc. But much of what Amazon do is because they have customers... So instead of complaining about Amazon, why not just fix our own behavior ?
(sorry to say that like this, I know it's super not diplomatic and one sided and maybe I could even not defend my own point of view if we'd be to talk face to face, but at some point choices must be made)
They treat their warehouse workers cruelly, tolerate counterfeits, allow the review process to be juked to the point of uselessness, and contribute to a brittle monoculture.
But the environment? Any consumer good is transported by internal combustion engine from the factory, to some intermediate places, to the door. Maybe someone uses a bike for the last part, but mostly, they drive to the store in their private automobile. Amazon uses package delivery services, which is much more efficient, and warehouses have a smaller environmental footprint than stores, which are all backed by warehouses anyway.
It's either a small amount of additional cardboard and plastic, or a whole additional building and a few miles of driving a single automobile. It's pretty clear that Amazon wins this comparison.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Amazon can get me a TV with lower total emissions than if I shopped locally. If I comparison shopped locally, I’m virtually certain Amazon’d win.
I ordered a camera lens which also came in a padded envelope. $400.
I got a box of wet wipes from them. It had its own sturdy box and they were placed in another box lined with shipping paper. $12.
I also won't buy anything that goes into my body. I ordered toothpaste and it came from some guy's basement. He wrapped them in plastic wrap and wrote two pack on the outside.
Amazon gets lazier and lazier by the day and is in a lot of ways no better than a flea market.
Most of what I buy are products that I can't find offline easily or at all. So Amazon actually brings them sooner than what I would be able to find it offline, like vitamins or exotic incense. Also some audio electronics are too expensive in the few shops that, even in Madrid, are specialized in that area.
But computers or phones or monitors/tv? MediaMarkt or Fnac have a good enough variety and I can just walk out the shop with a box, that I can return no questions asked if defective, the same day.
I've also found out that some pieces of audio electronics or instruments are better bought used from individuals. I got a pair of pro speakers for 100€ that are triple that money new. You can go and see the thing before paying. Same for furniture that is dirty cheap used.
Edit: could be this related to USA car dependence?
I live in NM and have had only half a dozen "major" (?) issues over the decade+ that I've ordered from Amazon. My experience is posted slightly up thread from yours.
Delivered by "Trusk". They were left with the building caretaker who just signed without checking.
We only got one. And IKEA won't do anything, because we can't prove we didn't receive the second one and aren't just fraudulently asking for a freebie.
Never got these kind of issues with anything sold by Amazon. Only time a package went missing, despite "La Poste" stating the contrary, they just re-delivered it without a fuss.
I've had several instances where the item was clearly at my local post office but misplaced. Canada Post refused to check without Amazon requesting it, and Amazon refused to do anything but send a new item. In each case the original item mysteriously appeared in my box months later when the postal workers inadvertently found it.
But they indeed all rate much worse than Amazon
The reason there is no huge Amazon.nl is the same reason there's no huge eBay.nl; there's already a large local competitor: Bol.com (and Marktplaats.nl).
Because of Amazon Prime Germany being popular in NL, Amazon introduced an Amazon Prime Netherlands. They even offer a discount deal but they offer a lot less than Amazon Germany, so it does not make sense to switch the Prime subscription (apart from the discount).
If you want to order something in The Netherlands from Germany, and they only ship to Germany, then you can use a service like Huifkar. They have a drop place in Germany to ship to, drive over border, and post it from there in The Netherlands to your address in The Netherlands.
I had positive and negative experiences with all of these. On Bol.com I received some kind of fashion (?) book by Kim Kardashian instead of a 200 EUR budget smartphone (I didn't even know who she was before that). They fixed it though.
If you look at the working circumstances in distribution centre of Amazon and Coolblue you understand why sometimes things go wrong.
[1] It is called "The Netherlands"; not "Netherland". You can also use the ccTLD, "NL".
That's an archaic Anglicism in my opinion. Nobody in Netherland calls the country "de Nederlanden", and probably hasn't in two centuries. I think it's about time that English finally followed suit.
Why? Do you think that languages should all follow the same rules about everything?
eBay has owned marktplaats since 2004. I think they’re conceptually the same.
I’m also unsure if eBay’s modus operandi has ever been to acquire and transition local platforms to their eBay platform, which is probably for the better.
I am glad Amazon is here - more competition is always good for consumers such as ourselves.
:(
And of course there will remain spelling and pronunciation differences. I don't expect English to use "Nederland", but "Netherland" should be fine. Maybe also drop the "Dutch" and replace it with something like Netherlandish or Netherlandic. Because "Dutch" is another weird archaic holdover. Nobody in Netherland even knows why we're called that in English. (I suspect it stems from the medieval name "Diets" for a group of predecessors of our language, which stems from well before the country existed.)
Because you're entirely right about the city, and yet China doesn't call itself China.
Actually, the big three SE asian countries (Japan, China, Korea) all have different names for themselves than most languages of european origin use. Presumably others do as well, but those are the ones I looked up.
I wonder why that is.
Edit: Further thought. Most of the major cities I'm aware of (especially capital cities) in those countries are pronounced fairly accurately (with room for accents, of course). That's actually a really interesting set up.
My pet theory is that eBay acquires/operates classified marketplaces and lets them dominate enough to prevent a competitor from appearing and taking marketshare from the more profitable eBay platform.