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A while back a friend that worked at a large retailer brought me a $400 lawnmower that was thrown away because whoever bought it, brought it back due to a missing bolt. Rather than replace the bolt, the entire lawnmower was replaced and the one with the missing bolt was tossed in a dumpster! WTH?
Anyway, someone that works at a very new, very large sporting goods store on woodruff road told me that they do the same thing. Could someone please explain how this makes sense? Wouldn't selling it as scratch and dent be better? Donating items to charity? Giving all their crap to me so I can fill eBay up?
Now, I must assume that this is common practice with most places. I find it a little disturbing.
That sounds a little suspect to me. Most stores return the merchandise to the distributer or manufacturer for a credit, otherwise it cuts into their profit margin too much.
A while back a friend that worked at a large retailer brought me a $400 lawnmower that was thrown away because whoever bought it, brought it back due to a missing bolt. Rather than replace the bolt, the entire lawnmower was replaced and the one with the missing bolt was tossed in a dumpster! WTH?
Anyway, someone that works at a very new, very large sporting goods store on woodruff road told me that they do the same thing. Could someone please explain how this makes sense? Wouldn't selling it as scratch and dent be better? Donating items to charity? Giving all their crap to me so I can fill eBay up?
Now, I must assume that this is common practice with most places. I find it a little disturbing.
Did your friend have permission to remove that lawn mower from the dumpster? If he did not have permission to remove the mower from the dumpster and his company saw him take it or finds out he took it, he could be charged with theft and arrested.
Some companies take the defective merchandise as a tax write off which is part of doing business others return to the manufacturer for a credit IF the manufacturer will take the merchandise back.
If a company would sell the item as a scratch/dent or defective they can lose their tax write off or be sued if whomever bought the defective item gets hurt.
As far as donating to charity it depends on the companies policy and how that will affect their write offs, returns, profit and taxes.
Why would anyone give all of their items to you so you can fill up ebay? That makes no sense and ebay isn't worth the time, effort and cost to list anything for sale anyway.
I know that Home Depot throws away a lot of unsold merchandise. It is marked down several times, and if it doesn't sell, it is thrown away. An employee would definitely be fired if they tried to take it. Of course, a lot of products can be returned to the vendor company.
The major American retailers ALL have systems in place that make sure that they get the most from their " shelf pulls " returns and seasonal take offs. The goods are sent by truck to a consolidation warehouse where similar goods are shrink wrapped on skids. The retail corporation "lets say its Sears " offers the goods to liquidator companies to buy, by the truck load. The liquidators buy the goods, bring them to their warehouse, and sell them to wholesalers, who in turn sell the goods to local retail stores.
I buy "skid lots " here in Toronto. The skids are 4 foot by 4 foot skids, piled up to about six feet high. The goods are separated into general classifications, such as home, beauty, sports, kids clothes, and so on. Depending on the type of goods, the price to me per skid , varies from 200 to 500 each. I sell them to small stores, at a mark up of 75 percent.
I bought a book for a literature class from Amazon a year or so ago, and then the professor changed the book on us prior to us having to read that one. Contacted Amazon to send back, and they told me to keep it and they refunded my money. I was surprised. Not quite the same situation as above, but somewhat similar.
I worked for target for many years and it was common place to trash anything that wasn't hazardous. We trashed bikes, food, furniture, baby furniture. It was explained to me that it was cheaper for them to take the refund the manufacturers offered them and trash it then it was to donate it for the tax write off. It personally made me sick to throw things out. I come from a family that reused and repaired things when they broke rather than throw them out and I know I could have donated upwords of 15k worth of things had I been able to take them and fix them. Its just the cost of the nation we live in.
Some companies take the defective merchandise as a tax write off which is part of doing business others return to the manufacturer for a credit IF the manufacturer will take the merchandise back.
If a company would sell the item as a scratch/dent or defective they can lose their tax write off or be sued if whomever bought the defective item gets hurt.
When I worked in retail management, we sent some return items back to the manufacturer for credit. For other items, we got credit directly from the manufacturer only if we destroyed the item. Even when we didn't get credit, we had to destroy the item for fear of lawsuits that might arise from selling defective returns.
This one missing bolt lawnmower seems to be an extreme case but I'm sure it happens.
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