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My own transition was when I returned a few items in a row that were brazenly unfit for their intended purpose. A heater fan that had locked up and melted witho

My own transition was when I returned a few items in a row that were brazenly unfit for their intended purpose. A heater fan that had locked up and melted without a thermal cutoff kicking in, a palm sander whose handle got extremely hot, paint that didn't stick to a surface and beaded up. The clerk just didn't care about any reasons for returning or feedback. I had wanted to be asked questions because these items were clearly defective. But, no questions asked. Companies just really don't care about the details of what they're selling beyond the immediate bottom line. Since then I've come to see the return window as an extended purchase decision. My stock of items sitting around is a local cache of things I might need, rather than having to delay a project for another shipping time or waste time running to the store and getting gouged. I'll even do things like buy a tool because it's on sale at a good price, then decide a few months later whether I really need it or not. Recently I've even been toying with the idea of skipping digging through piles of box store sheet goods - order some quantity much larger than what I need, have them load onto my trailer, go through at home at my own pace, and then bring back the rejects/unneeded and they can unload. It's not how I'm wired - when I make decisions I generally want them to be settled. But I'm paying for that overhead anyway, and there's no honor on retailers' part - stocking busted up goods to begin with, playing games with sale prices and coupons, terrible packing jobs, etc. So whatever, they chose the rules and I just play them according to my own incentives. I still can't fathom how the overall system adds up though. Intellectually I get it that if only 10% of items are returned and trashed, prices only need to go up 10% to compensate. But I don't understand how there aren't many more returns since that is the optimal strategy for taking advantage of sales/bundles/competition/etc. I can only think that most people are much more reluctant to have "spent money" outstanding in the short term, regardless of getting it back down the line.

bityard 3y ago
They're better now but a few years ago, I actively avoided buying tools at Home Depot because they always just restocked broken returns and I got burned by it multiple times. I'm not sure why they would do this other than sheer laziness. They even asked why you were returning it. (Why ask if you don't care?) On one particular trip, I returned some kind of complicated saw or jig or something because it was broken in a spot that I didn't see until after I brought it home. (It also had obvious signs of use, so I wasn't the first "owner" of it either.) After the return, I walked around the store to get some other items and then came back to the tool isle to get a replacement and was non-plussed to see that the exact item I returned 15 minutes ago had already been put back on the shelf, without a discount sticker or anything.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I feel like that was the period when stores were adopting the easy returns but hadn't really accepted the results of taking the loss, so employees had poor incentives to just stick it back out for resale. Then again maybe they're still doing it with tools bought in store and then returned there. These days when I buy tools at HD they're generally ship to home. And when I return stuff in the store, they're often a different SKU so they get an RTV (return to vendor) tag rather than the store reselling them. Which given the return pallets I've seen for sale elsewhere (ie this article), I wonder if it isn't a euphemism for dispose of, even if the box is unopened. I've also got to wonder about this from the angle of the financial arrangements. Part of me always wonders if all that inventory is even owned by Home Depot, or if the contractual arrangements make it closer to a consignment relationship where stuff that is declared as unsaleable (for whatever reason) is eaten by the vendor.
  - flutas 3y ago
    > I've also got to wonder about this from the angle of the financial arrangements. Part of me always wonders if all that inventory is even owned by Home Depot, or if the contractual arrangements make it closer to a consignment relationship where stuff that is declared as unsaleable (for whatever reason) is eaten by the vendor. My understanding, which may not be the best, from a few years of working retail. Most items for sale are actually owned by the big box company (retailer), but anything returned as defective is typically trashed and the big box company gets a credit from the manufacturer on their next purchase. So basically the manufacturer eats the cost, but it's also contingent on the retailer still buying their products.
  - toast0 3y ago
    > they get an RTV (return to vendor) tag rather than the store reselling them. Which given the return pallets I've seen for sale elsewhere (ie this article), I wonder if it isn't a euphemism for dispose of, even if the box is unopened. I think return to vendors are shipped at the vendor's expense, so vendors tend to ship to nearby surplus processors for the most part.

bityard 3y ago

They're better now but a few years ago, I actively avoided buying tools at Home Depot because they always just restocked broken returns and I got burned by it multiple times. I'm not sure why they would do this other than sheer laziness. They even asked why you were returning it. (Why ask if you don't care?) On one particular trip, I returned some kind of complicated saw or jig or something because it was broken in a spot that I didn't see until after I brought it home. (It also had obvious signs of use, so I wasn't the first "owner" of it either.) After the return, I walked around the store to get some other items and then came back to the tool isle to get a replacement and was non-plussed to see that the exact item I returned 15 minutes ago had already been put back on the shelf, without a discount sticker or anything.

mindslight 3y ago
I feel like that was the period when stores were adopting the easy returns but hadn't really accepted the results of taking the loss, so employees had poor incentives to just stick it back out for resale. Then again maybe they're still doing it with tools bought in store and then returned there. These days when I buy tools at HD they're generally ship to home. And when I return stuff in the store, they're often a different SKU so they get an RTV (return to vendor) tag rather than the store reselling them. Which given the return pallets I've seen for sale elsewhere (ie this article), I wonder if it isn't a euphemism for dispose of, even if the box is unopened. I've also got to wonder about this from the angle of the financial arrangements. Part of me always wonders if all that inventory is even owned by Home Depot, or if the contractual arrangements make it closer to a consignment relationship where stuff that is declared as unsaleable (for whatever reason) is eaten by the vendor.
- flutas 3y ago
  > I've also got to wonder about this from the angle of the financial arrangements. Part of me always wonders if all that inventory is even owned by Home Depot, or if the contractual arrangements make it closer to a consignment relationship where stuff that is declared as unsaleable (for whatever reason) is eaten by the vendor. My understanding, which may not be the best, from a few years of working retail. Most items for sale are actually owned by the big box company (retailer), but anything returned as defective is typically trashed and the big box company gets a credit from the manufacturer on their next purchase. So basically the manufacturer eats the cost, but it's also contingent on the retailer still buying their products.
- toast0 3y ago
  > they get an RTV (return to vendor) tag rather than the store reselling them. Which given the return pallets I've seen for sale elsewhere (ie this article), I wonder if it isn't a euphemism for dispose of, even if the box is unopened. I think return to vendors are shipped at the vendor's expense, so vendors tend to ship to nearby surplus processors for the most part.