After a report from the British channel ITV where we saw Amazon destroying tens of thousands of unsold products, the merchant decided to change his strategy. It now operates two types of programs for returned or unsold products that remain in stock.
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The case caused a scandal at the end of June. Images broadcast by the ITV News channel showed that tens of thousands of unsold products were simply destroyed in the warehouses ofAmazon in Glasgow, Scotland. In this place, in all, 130,000 unsold or returned products, often new, would be destroyed every week. Only a small percentage of them would be donated to charity. This would not be an isolated case, but what is happening in all of Amazon’s warehouses that handle merchandise from third-party sellers.
A waste that shocked and which has just pushed the online commerce giant to buy a good behavior by announcing the arrival of two programmes antigaspi.
Destocking of unsold products
The first program is called FBA Grade and Resell. It concerns products returned by buyers. It is now possible for traders using the platform to resell these products by stamping them “used”. The price depends on the condition of the product. But it is when unsold products from third-party sellers remain in stock for a long time that they are most massively destroyed. To solve the problem, Amazon developed a second program which he named FBA Liquidations. It allows sellers to use a wholesale resale channel to recoup some of their funds, rather than destroying inventory. This program is already in operation in the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and will be launched in the United Kingdom in August.
Amazon secretly destroys millions of unsold products
Article ofEdward Back published on June 26, 2021
British channel ITV was able to obtain exclusive hidden camera footage of a “destruction zone” in an Amazon warehouse, where nearly 130,000 items, often new, are destroyed each week.
New images show waste of unprecedented scale at Amazon, which is said to destroy millions of unsold items every year. The british tv channel ITV sneaked in on hidden camera in a warehouseAmazon in Dunfermline, Scotland. The images show items in good condition, often new, marked for destruction.
Journalists fromITV News witnessed the scrapping laptops, of drones, televisions, books and even protective masks still under seal. These are unsold items or customer returns, often in perfect condition. Journalists were able to follow the products to a recycling, as well as a landfill.
The hidden camera report ofITV News in an Amazon warehouse, with images of products sent for destruction (in English, turn on automatic subtitle translation). © ITV News
130,000 items destroyed every week in a single warehouse
The phenomenon is explained by the mode of operation from amazon, which stocks products from third-party sellers in its warehouses. This space is expensive, and it is often more profitable for sellers to throw away their unsold items to avoid these fees rather than pay for their return. The chain was able to interview a former Amazon employee, who said they had quotas of 130,000 items to be destroyed each week, for a single warehouse.
These figures are corroborated by images from a screen that shows 124,332 items to be destroyed, compared to just 27,213 items donated to charity. In an interview with the channel, John Boumphrey, Amazon’s national director at UK, had nevertheless indicated that a number ” extremely weak »Objects were destroyed. If the figures are representative of the operation of the firm’s warehouses around the world, it could represent tens of millions of items destroyed each week. In the UK alone, Amazon has 24 similar centers.
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