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I wonder why someone couldn’t build a business like this. Basically contract with Amazon to handle all of their returns. That company then salvages and resells

• tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  That's what happens. That's the "liquidators" the article/video is referring to, and most of the stuff goes there. Can't do that with e.g. counterfeits though, or with products that may be dangerous. And not everything is resellable in practice. To resell something you need to 1. determine what you have (not just the product but also the state it is in), 2. have someone who wants it, 3. that person needs to be willing to accept the risk of getting a used/substandard product (higher risk of it arriving broken), 4. you have to find that person, 5. you have to get the product to that person, 6. you have to manage the whole overhead of the process (additional shipping, sorting, testing, ...). Each of these steps is associated with costs, both financial and environmental (the latter will skyrocket as soon as you start e.g. attributing some of the environmental footprint of the people whose labor you spend on these tasks to those tasks). It's very unlikely that Amazon wouldn't optimize something so obvious. Once the returns are generated, there's probably not much of a better way to deal with it. However, if you ban returns, online shopping becomes less attractive - people will use retail stores again. Which also toss stuff that doesn't sell, use a lot more real estate, air conditioning, and again, human labor. There's a reason online is often cheaper, and it may well be "cheaper" (better) for the environment too, despite the waste.
• humaniania 6y ago
  They do. Look up amazon pallet videos.