'The impact is incredible': Hidden cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up

maple1 wrote: ↑ Their pricing might be good and the variety of products unmatched but I have made the decision not to shop with them. For me, they represent the destruction of the brick and mortar business. I would rather support the local businesses that aside from offering work in the area, provide a sense of community that online cannot. I think this is even more important given how local businesses have been hit under Covid. When you have a group of stores together, that only helps support an area / community. I do shop online but generally at traditional retailer that happens to have an online presence, it is just easier and frankly, sometimes cheaper but have no problem supporting a local store when I can as I just enjoy shopping in person.

ShinNoodles wrote: ↑ Is it known what percentage of purchases are returned to Amazon?

ramon2 wrote: ↑ Amazon is just tip of iceberg

Built-in obsolescence is a real thing. I open things that stop working and try to fix them or at least learn.

The lifespan of electronic devices s becoming shorter, in 2004 about 3.5% devices failed within 5yrs, in 2013 it was 8.3%: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press ... ng-shorter

This trend is not an accident, it is very careful design. Sometimes the devices are just low quality but often they use time-bomb components.

Computers usually do not need time-bomb because they obsolete fast.

For example AC motors in vacuums, blenders, etc - uses carbon brushes that has only few 1000s hours lifetime. Sometimes even that is not enough, so they use material that wears off faster than others, for example lately was opening the Omnitech shredder and everything was fine, even the brushes were almost new, plastic nylon gears were in great shape, but one particular gear was totally stripped. Someone made a video about it and from 6:24 talks about this very issue:



Many people make their living by scavenging failed gadgets that would normally end up in landfill, fixing and peddling back. And that refurbished appliance may have higher reliability than original because the time-bomb was most likely replaced by regular aftermarket part.

craftsman wrote: ↑ I agree with you for the most part but unfortunately, sometimes it comes down to selection or getting something that is not available anywhere else since the local brick and mortar shops (or even larger Canadian chains) don't carry. Canadian online retailers have to increase their online selection into areas where they have never been before (ie stock parts for things that break or is consumed). A great example would be replacement twines for electric dethatchers! We all know they break and need to be replaced so why doesn't anyone stock them especially for the ones that they sell in store!

TomLafinsky wrote: ↑ We might not need such program if people would not 'buy first, think later'... Sounds familiar???

Btw, 66% of all the food produced in Canada goes to waste. Ain't we a great country?

grego9198 wrote: ↑ I'm not surprised, I see pallets of amazon returns being sold off on auction sites all the time. Even when I worked at Zellers we would trash a lot of returns. Back then they didn't collect E-waste so it would just all end up in the compactor.

Personally I think a lot of the problem is that nothing is made to be repaired anymore. I bought an outdoor wifi plug from amazon earlier this year for $30. It stopped working after a few months so I contacted the seller who told me that the internal fuse likely blew and rendered the whole thing useless. They had amazon ship me a new one, that one looked used (had scratches on the plastic body) and didn't work. So they sent me a 2nd replacement which ended up working. Of course they didn't want the non-working items back since they wouldn't be fixing them anyways.

I ended up taking them apart to see if I could fix them. Turns out they use a surface mount 10A fuse, which I found on digikey for $2. Soldered in new fuses and lo and behold the two "broken" ones work again.

If the company just used standard glass tube fuses it could be fixed by the end user very easily, but instead if the device pops the fuse one time the whole thing is garbage. So wasteful.

GangStarr wrote: ↑When incredibly large business do the math on super friendly return plans perhaps they realize the junk yard or whoever is the cheapest

It’s sad I guess but it’s dollars and cents

bylo wrote: ↑ Economists call these negative externalities. One way to balance these effects is legislation that forces those who create the problem to deal with the problem. These measures can range from environmental surcharges to the ban of offending items/practices (e.g. plastic bags) to "right to repair" statutes, etc.

In the end we all pay, one way or another. It's better that those who contribute to the problem, be it the manufacturers, retailers or consumers, pay for addressing those problems.

rabbit wrote: ↑ This person in Burnaby is selling a bunch of crap that she says are Amazon returns:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 598090491/