What happens to returned products?

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Vitamanic said:

That's not true at all.

 

Many opened items are sent back to vendors for credit, many are destroyed as per vendor agreements, others are transferred to the store's warehouse to be refurbished or to be sold to third parties and a portion of them (vendor agreement permitting) are repackaged and sold as such.

Oh yeah, destroying the product is SOOOO much better than fire-saleing it.

 

Most things are special ordered are not sent back for credit, they just rot in the warehouse until someone decides it's taking up space and nobody is going to buy it at full retail price. That's why the websites frequently say NO RETURNS on anything special ordered, refurbished, or open box.

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Oh yeah, destroying the product is SOOOO much better than fire-saleing it.

 

Most things are special ordered are not sent back for credit, they just rot in the warehouse until someone decides it's taking up space and nobody is going to buy it at full retail price. That's why the websites frequently say NO RETURNS on anything special ordered, refurbished, or open box.

... that's still not right. At retail, most electronics outside of low price stuff is sent back directly to the vendor from the store itself or getting sold as open-box. Low ticket items bought on contract may go back to a corporate warehouse to be sold online or sold in bulk to a third party.

[Letgomyleghoe]

On 5/31/2020 at 3:04 PM, Ed Edd and Eddy said:

They get dissembled as punishment for not satisfying the customer.

 

Um wUt no

[Kisai]

10 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

... that's still not right. At retail, most electronics outside of low price stuff is sent back directly to the vendor from the store itself or getting sold as open-box. Low ticket items bought on contract may go back to a corporate warehouse to be sold online or sold in bulk to a third party.

Unless you got a source on this, my experience at the major electronics store and a general merchandise store suggest that nothing gets sent back, it either goes on sale until someone buys it, or it's tossed in the dumpster/compactor if it's unsaleable. 

 

Stores like Walmart, throw things in the compactor because it's cheaper than returning it or donating it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-walmart-food-waste-1.3814719

 

Retailers that don't deal with food, still throw piles of things in the trash

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/high-end-dumpster-diving-matt-malone/

 

[Roswell]

21 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Unless you got a source on this, my experience at the major electronics store and a general merchandise store suggest that nothing gets sent back, it either goes on sale until someone buys it, or it's tossed in the dumpster/compactor if it's unsaleable. 

 

Stores like Walmart, throw things in the compactor because it's cheaper than returning it or donating it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-walmart-food-waste-1.3814719

 

Retailers that don't deal with food, still throw piles of things in the trash

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/high-end-dumpster-diving-matt-malone/

 

Yeah, my source is working in management at a big box retailer for the better part of a decade before deciding to go back to school. If you never saw vendor or warehouse returns, you weren't involved in the process. Unless you're management or an inventory employee, you're not dealing with it. But if you would have paid attention during truck unloading, you'd notice that pallets were also getting put back on the truck for returns to vendor/warehouse or there were separate trucks scheduled just to pick up. In addition, many items will be marked for damages (an open box item that must be destroyed whether it's working or not).

 

This isn't to say that retailers don't just sell some stuff as open box. They can IF their vendor agreement allows it.

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Yeah, my source is working in management at a big box retailer for the better part of a decade before deciding to go back to school. If you never saw vendor or warehouse returns, you weren't involved in the process. Unless you're management or an inventory employee, you're not dealing with it. But if you would have paid attention during truck unloading, you'd notice that pallets were also getting put back on the truck for returns to vendor/warehouse or there were separate trucks scheduled just to pick up. In addition, many items will be marked for damages (an open box item that must be destroyed whether it's working or not).

 

This isn't to say that retailers don't just sell some stuff as open box. They can IF their vendor agreement allows it.

The General merchandise store never sent anything back except books. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else was fire-sale'd in the summer and whatever was left and wasn't stolen overnight, went into the dumpster. Given, I will point out that said store was just miserable to work in and people likely just didn't give a care.

 

The Electronics retailer, which went out of business but was acquired by BestBuy a few years before, you're right, I didn't see the merch come in or be returned because I wasn't working on the sales floor. However I knew exactly what was going on with the warranty items because of the miserable product service plans involved making things miserable enough for the customer to have to bring the same back three times.  What happens when they want the item refunded? The sales guy gets mad at you for losing their commission.

 

[dalekphalm]

On 5/29/2020 at 10:59 PM, Jet_ski said:

What happens when you return a product to a retailer like Microcenter? Do they just repackage it and sell it as new to the next person that comes in?

 

I got a couple of monitors form Microcenter and one of them had a couple of finger prints on them. As soon as I plugged it in, I noticed a bunch of dead pixels. So now I’m thinking someone else returned it for the same reason and they tried to dump it on me.

The exact policy and process largely depends on the specific retailer. 
 

But generally, you have two camps: those that offer open-box discounts, and those that don’t.

 

In both cases, they’ll inspect the items and sort them based on whether the product is defective or not. 
 

If it’s defective, they’ll act depending on the manufacturer’s (or suppliers) instructions. Some items are returned to the supplier for possible remanufacture or repair, and some items are destroyed on site (usually ones where you can’t really fix the items and/or it’s too expensive to ship them back). Usually the store will get a credit for these. 
 

If it’s not defective, it’ll get inspected, and typically repackaged for sale. 
 

Stores that don’t offer open-box discounts will just put the item back on the shelf and try and sell it at full cost. If packaging is destroyed or very obviously previously opened, they may mark the item for clearance. 
 

For stores that do have an open box discount policy, they’ll list the item as open box and usually give a 5-20% discount (or more if there’s visible damage, etc). 
 

In some cases, stores will collect all non-defective returns and sell them via auction, a secondary liquidation business (Costco does this), or have periodic “warehouse clearance sales”, etc. 
 

Usually, if they can make the packaging look new, they’ll try and sell it at full price. 

[scottyseng]

Microcenter Warehouse Person here:

It depends on what the item has been through. If the item as been untouched (we can really only take our customer's word on that, it's hard to tell if some stuff has been opened), it will go back as new, but with covid requirements, we plastic wrap and quarantine the item for 7 days. If it was opened, but still in operating condition, it will be set as clearance or open box (If it is a PC or laptop, we have to take it to service to have it reimaged to ensure no data remains). If the product is returned as defect, we do an RTV (Return to Vendor), where the vendor will refurbish it and send it back to us.

 

As for why your monitor may have fingerprints on it, it may have been opened by a customer who wanted to see what was inside of it. We get a lot of people wondering if said monitor comes with a display port cable.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

The General merchandise store never sent anything back except books. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else was fire-sale'd in the summer and whatever was left and wasn't stolen overnight, went into the dumpster. Given, I will point out that said store was just miserable to work in and people likely just didn't give a care.

 

The Electronics retailer, which went out of business but was acquired by BestBuy a few years before, you're right, I didn't see the merch come in or be returned because I wasn't working on the sales floor. However I knew exactly what was going on with the warranty items because of the miserable product service plans involved making things miserable enough for the customer to have to bring the same back three times.  What happens when they want the item refunded? The sales guy gets mad at you for losing their commission.

 

If you’re talking about Futureshop, they would almost certainly return at least some items to the vendors for credit. 
 

Having worked at Canadian Tire, MANY items are returned for credit to the vendor. Some are destroyed on site. What happens depends on the item and the vendor. 

[RasmusDC]

i hate getting "open box items" when ordering a new product, but if you want a return policy then i really can´t fault companies.. 

 

if not then products will have bloated prices because of this... i would rather have a cheaper 2080TI than having it cost 2x because a lot return it, and then companies either have to heavily discount it, or destroy it.

 

that is also why i have been a bit against return policies on IT hardware, since it is not like clothe a fitment issue, of course if defective... yes.. but seen many people "self" binning CPU´s and GPU´s by returning it. and running though 10´s of GPU´s until getting the one they one, yes using different retailers....

 

remember when people where hunting golden samples of CPU´s.. with certain serial numbers on them.. well guess that is a bit back with the 1600AF as an example.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, RasmusDC said:

i hate getting "open box items" when ordering a new product, but if you want a return policy then i really can´t fault companies.. 

 

if not then products will have bloated prices because of this... i would rather have a cheaper 2080TI than having it cost 2x because a lot return it, and then companies either have to heavily discount it, or destroy it.

 

that is also why i have been a bit against return policies on IT hardware, since it is not like clothe a fitment issue, of course if defective... yes.. but seen many people "self" binning CPU´s and GPU´s by returning it. and running though 10´s of GPU´s until getting the one they one, yes using different retailers....

 

remember when people where hunting golden samples of CPU´s.. with certain serial numbers on them.. well guess that is a bit back with the 1600AF as an example.

People on this forum do that constantly. 
 

There are always threads about people trying to decide between two products, and then they often buy both to test and will return whichever one they like least. 

[RasmusDC]

16 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

People on this forum do that constantly. 
 

There are always threads about people trying to decide between two products, and then they often buy both to test and will return whichever one they like least. 

also knew people that when going to lan´s ordered the biggest GPU they get there hands on.. used it for a week then used the 14 days return period after that..

 

it just sucks being in the other end of that as a retailer... people are generally assholes, that is just a fact. and PC part retailers don´t have that big margins on things, especially the online ones, that have to fight price indexing sites.. 

 

and with the review element online you can get almost all information needed.

 

only needed to return a CPU one time, a 4xxx something I5, that was sold as a 4 core 4 thread, and even on the intel packaging it said 4core... then it was a 2 core, thing it was a 4570T whereas the S was 4 core/4 threads and the T was 2/4... but that was directly faulty information both from Intel and from the vendor.. 

 

hehe still have the box picture i sent to the vendor..

[Promosss]

On 6/1/2020 at 4:31 AM, mach said:

If not faulty or defected, they'll most likely get repacked as close to unopened as possible, and of course sold as new.

It's naive to think all returns becomes B-stock.

In countries where everyone can freely return stuff. "I'd just return it." seems a very natural thing to say, right? Even LTT ordered computers, did a review and returned the gears. Think of the sheer amount of stuff get returned but do you see tons of B-stock and open-box deals around? 

This easy return rule is a double edge sword. Very convenient to consumer but the down side is your "brand new" stuff is probably slightly used, unless it's a immensely popular item or a pre-order.

This guy's point is absolutely valid.