Amazon will allow third-party companies that sell items through the web giant to resell returned products. In this way, Amazon wants to prevent waste. Millions of products that are returned are destroyed because it is cheaper than reselling them, a British TV channel revealed in June.
In a blog post Amazon has announced the new plans. In addition to the resale option, there will also be an option to work with buyers of used products. The plan will be rolled out first in the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Nothing has been announced about the Netherlands, where an Amazon sorting center has been opened since last month.
The United Kingdom has 24 Amazon distribution centers. In late June, ITV revealed that 100,000 products are destroyed every week in one Scottish location alone, from vacuum cleaners to smart TVs. Customers have returned the products, but there is often nothing wrong with the products. However, it takes a lot of effort to check the condition of the product, repack it and sell it again.
Pay for storage
Unsold stock is also destroyed. That has to do with Amazon’s business model. In addition to its own products, Amazon.com also sells products from third-party companies. Those products are located in Amazon distribution centers. The external companies pay for the storage. At some point, it may therefore become cheaper to destroy the products than to continue to pay for storage in the distribution center.
An estimated 10 to 20 percent of the packages that people order are returned to an online store. That costs online stores a lot of money.
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