Amazon judges how quickly/whether to issue a return based on an algorithm weighted by your lifetime total value. If you shop a lot on Amazon, occasionally retur

Amazon judges how quickly/whether to issue a return based on an algorithm weighted by your lifetime total value. If you shop a lot on Amazon, occasionally returning an item will be 0 hassle for you. If you don't shop on Amazon that often and get unlucky, they will hassle you about the return (you can google this for confirmation). Prime customers are also generally treated much better, obviously because they have a much higher LTV. That third-party seller probably gave you so much grief about the return because their sales volume is much lower, so individual returns cost them a much more significant % of their revenue. Also, easy returns doesn't mean the items are being reused/the process is good for the environment. Industry surveys show around 25% of returns wind up in a landfill, and this number varies greatly based on what the item is - clothes are thrown away much more often. Basically, Amazon and other high-volume low-quality retailers simply sell so many products at so high a markup that they can absorb the cost of throwing away some XX% of the products that get returned as a cost of doing business.