As a warehouse worker I had to do this once (on a much smaller scale) and it disgusted me. The warehouse stored medical supplies. I was forced to throw out whole pallets of things like hospital...
As a warehouse worker I had to do this once (on a much smaller scale) and it disgusted me. The warehouse stored medical supplies.
I was forced to throw out whole pallets of things like hospital socks, stethoscopes, diabetic supplies, and IV hangers. All of it was brand new and totally unopened. Most of it was marked for donation but we were told to throw it out anyways. I had heard from one of the other workers that the hospital marked it for donation, claimed it on their taxes, then threw it out because it was cheaper than shipping it out
It's cases like this that always drive me batty when people say free market solutions are always best because they are the most efficient. I guess it is, just that the metric for efficiency is...
It's cases like this that always drive me batty when people say free market solutions are always best because they are the most efficient.
I guess it is, just that the metric for efficiency is 'dispose of excess as quickly and cheaply as possible.' Explains so much about toxic waste dumping.
Absolutely shocking. We whinge about supermarkets disposing of food waste rather than passing unsold produce to charities, but this is unnecessary wastage on an industrial scale. Amazon are at the...
Absolutely shocking. We whinge about supermarkets disposing of food waste rather than passing unsold produce to charities, but this is unnecessary wastage on an industrial scale. Amazon are at the point where they're so profitable that they've completely stopped giving a fuck.
This is surely why our future is going to look more like Wall-E day-by-day.
I worked with a friend for a few months at an Amazon warehouse - sorry, 'fulfilment centre'. I burned out after a few months, and my leg still hasn't quite felt the same since. My friend was...
I worked with a friend for a few months at an Amazon warehouse - sorry, 'fulfilment centre'. I burned out after a few months, and my leg still hasn't quite felt the same since. My friend was working on the warehouse floor and frequently complained of being unable to either find a place to store things or keep up with the time goals. Space was always at a premium there, and you might be surprised by the sheer volume of cheap sex toys that people buy - sometimes with the batteries shipped inside, so they go off with all their novelty charm as you walk by.
Anyway, it still disgusts me that the company throws all this out instead of finding some way, with their seemingly endless and untaxed billions, to give it a home. Even after having worked there, I still would've expected them to give more of a shit. It's just free goodwill (no tax), and they're always in serious need of that.
To hazard a guess, if it's in a normal store, the price floor for how low it can go is pretty low. After a certain point if they get any money above zero, and the item stops taking up space,...
To hazard a guess, if it's in a normal store, the price floor for how low it can go is pretty low. After a certain point if they get any money above zero, and the item stops taking up space, that's a win. Maybe not profit, but a net positive as opposed to throwing it out.
In an AZ warehouse, they can't just place that item near the front door and hope someone grabs it. Even if someone buys the discounted item, it still has logistics overhead it will incur when it gets packed and shipped. So if it sold, it would be a net negative. Not to mention that in a highly optimized for plan like (I assume) AZ has, the value of the storage space for that old item is higher than it would be for a standard retail store.
This reminds me of the opposite feeling I had when I learned about a Spanish parking lot filled with cars never to be sold. I hate the idea of things being left to rot, but I also hate the idea of...
This reminds me of the opposite feeling I had when I learned about a Spanish parking lot filled with cars never to be sold. I hate the idea of things being left to rot, but I also hate the idea of destroying them.
Am I weighing these equally? Is there a solution within capitalism?
Traditionally, you lower the price until they are purchased, or just give them away. In reality, there are contracts, minimum purchase requirements, concern if you're undercutting yourself by...
Am I weighing these equally? Is there a solution within capitalism?
Traditionally, you lower the price until they are purchased, or just give them away. In reality, there are contracts, minimum purchase requirements, concern if you're undercutting yourself by having a rolling clearance sale, and budgeting allowing for unsold and destroyed product to be more acceptable than product sold at a deep discount.
In general, charging more at the landfill might do it, except that it’s likely to result in illegal dumping. One possibility would be requiring merchants to prepay some warehouse costs. They get...
In general, charging more at the landfill might do it, except that it’s likely to result in illegal dumping.
One possibility would be requiring merchants to prepay some warehouse costs. They get the money back if the product is sold or donated, but not if it’s destroyed. This acts as a penalty for not predicting demand correctly and/or planning for an alternative if the merchandise doesn’t get bought.
Though, unsold merchandise is already a loss so you’d think there would be incentive enough already.
The underlying reason for these warehouses is to support impulse buys (along with quick “free” shipping) and any such schemes that discourage speculative manufacturing would likely result in less variety of merchandise that’s available without a long shipping delay.
Online giant Amazon is destroying millions of items of unsold stock every year, products that are often new and unused, ITV News can reveal.
Undercover filming from inside Amazon's Dunfermline warehouse reveals the sheer scale of the waste: Smart TVs, laptops, drones, hairdryers, top of the range headphones, computer drives, books galore, thousands of sealed face masks – all sorted into boxes marked “destroy”.
Products that were never sold, or returned by a customer. Almost all could have been redistributed to charities or those in need. Instead, they are thrown into vast bins, carried away by lorries (which we tracked), and dumped at either recycling centres or, worse, a landfill site.
As a warehouse worker I had to do this once (on a much smaller scale) and it disgusted me. The warehouse stored medical supplies.
I was forced to throw out whole pallets of things like hospital socks, stethoscopes, diabetic supplies, and IV hangers. All of it was brand new and totally unopened. Most of it was marked for donation but we were told to throw it out anyways. I had heard from one of the other workers that the hospital marked it for donation, claimed it on their taxes, then threw it out because it was cheaper than shipping it out
It still makes me sick to think about it.
It's cases like this that always drive me batty when people say free market solutions are always best because they are the most efficient.
I guess it is, just that the metric for efficiency is 'dispose of excess as quickly and cheaply as possible.' Explains so much about toxic waste dumping.
That particular example is a form of cheating because it wasn't really a donation.
Absolutely shocking. We whinge about supermarkets disposing of food waste rather than passing unsold produce to charities, but this is unnecessary wastage on an industrial scale. Amazon are at the point where they're so profitable that they've completely stopped giving a fuck.
This is surely why our future is going to look more like Wall-E day-by-day.
Most retailers have clearance sales for overstocked items. I wonder why that doesn't happen for these items?
I worked with a friend for a few months at an Amazon warehouse - sorry, 'fulfilment centre'. I burned out after a few months, and my leg still hasn't quite felt the same since. My friend was working on the warehouse floor and frequently complained of being unable to either find a place to store things or keep up with the time goals. Space was always at a premium there, and you might be surprised by the sheer volume of cheap sex toys that people buy - sometimes with the batteries shipped inside, so they go off with all their novelty charm as you walk by.
Anyway, it still disgusts me that the company throws all this out instead of finding some way, with their seemingly endless and untaxed billions, to give it a home. Even after having worked there, I still would've expected them to give more of a shit. It's just free goodwill (no tax), and they're always in serious need of that.
To hazard a guess, if it's in a normal store, the price floor for how low it can go is pretty low. After a certain point if they get any money above zero, and the item stops taking up space, that's a win. Maybe not profit, but a net positive as opposed to throwing it out.
In an AZ warehouse, they can't just place that item near the front door and hope someone grabs it. Even if someone buys the discounted item, it still has logistics overhead it will incur when it gets packed and shipped. So if it sold, it would be a net negative. Not to mention that in a highly optimized for plan like (I assume) AZ has, the value of the storage space for that old item is higher than it would be for a standard retail store.
This reminds me of the opposite feeling I had when I learned about a Spanish parking lot filled with cars never to be sold. I hate the idea of things being left to rot, but I also hate the idea of destroying them.
Am I weighing these equally? Is there a solution within capitalism?
Traditionally, you lower the price until they are purchased, or just give them away. In reality, there are contracts, minimum purchase requirements, concern if you're undercutting yourself by having a rolling clearance sale, and budgeting allowing for unsold and destroyed product to be more acceptable than product sold at a deep discount.
In general, charging more at the landfill might do it, except that it’s likely to result in illegal dumping.
One possibility would be requiring merchants to prepay some warehouse costs. They get the money back if the product is sold or donated, but not if it’s destroyed. This acts as a penalty for not predicting demand correctly and/or planning for an alternative if the merchandise doesn’t get bought.
Though, unsold merchandise is already a loss so you’d think there would be incentive enough already.
The underlying reason for these warehouses is to support impulse buys (along with quick “free” shipping) and any such schemes that discourage speculative manufacturing would likely result in less variety of merchandise that’s available without a long shipping delay.