So many people buy things without even thinking about it, use it once or twice, decide they don't need it, and then return it. It goes back, often without packaging, probably off to a landfill. All those resources and value just tossed into a pit, hidden in Amazon's bottom line. Its insane to me.
Forever easy returns just seem so incredibly damaging to me.
Clothing manufacturers, however, make this really annoying when they don't have to.
Clothing sizes don't mean anything. Consequently, you can order your "size" and still find things are completely out to lunch.
If you could get a real "specification" on clothing, then I would have far less of an issue with companies cracking down on returns.
Amazon, however, comes in for special approbation as I simply can't trust that whatever I'm receiving has any resemblance to what I expected from what I ordered.
Ever try buying Christmas lights on Amazon? The advisable way is to just buy a ton of things and return whatever is broken, which in 2021, out of 6 sets of lights I bought, I ended up returning 5.
Kids clothing is just random. Like, fuck it, 2 items, same manufacturer, same listed size, but completely different real world sizes, as in "item 1 is oversized and is large enough to wear next year, item 2 is too small by far, return both and try again".
The solution is to not buy from places like Amazon. I bought my lights from somewhere else and other than a broken bulb that was fixed with the included extra lights I was 5 for 5 on working lights on bargain bin quality strands/nets.
Quit supporting the marketplaces that shovel trash on us.
Big box home improvement stores (Lowes, Home Depot) stop selling lights early December. They mostly sell generic knock offs, at insanely high prices. The $120 reindeer I bought from Home Depot was poor quality, and broke after one year.
Bargain bin lights tend to be incandescent[1], which, even though the colors are superior, I still want to avoid.
In 2021 Lowes actually was selling some high quality lights, but by early December they were sold out and not getting any more in stock.
Amazon actually has some innovative products, some of the drop shipped from China lights are quite nice (and some of them are really nice), I have 2 sets of cool solar powered ones outside right now. One set works amazing, the other set only 5/6 lights work, but for $20 that isn't half bad.
[1] Given current manufacturing trends, it is sad that Christmas incandescent lights will probably outlive LED lights. I have some incandescent strands from my childhood that still work just fine, I have no confidence cheap LEDs will last more than a couple years.
> Amazon actually has some innovative products
If innovation is 72% of the products being immediately trash at delivery, count me out. It seems to me their real innovation is getting people to accept that an 72% failure rate is a good and acceptable thing.
Imagine if 72% of the apples you bought at the store were rotten by the time you came home. Imagine if 72% of the cars manufactured were scrap in the first 10 miles.
72% of the things you bought here were trash at delivery, and its being hailed as a good thing.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Please, quit supporting marketplaces that shovel trash on us.
A large nationwide grocery store chain carries yogurt covered raisins of such low quality that every time I have tried them over many years I have gotten nauseous.
That same store sells their own branded frozen fruit that is often so tasteless that it is useless at being "fruit".
One of America's largest brands of coconut milk is devoid of any coconut flavor, I have no idea why it is on store shelves.
Clothing and cheap electronics are two areas that will always be problematic. LED bulbs from physical retailers are also a crap shoot and frequently fail. I have purchased 2 identically labeled pairs of Levi jeans from a store and had them fit dramatically different.
Baby clothing sizes from well known brands are still a crapshoot, the reason for buying and returning through Amazon is because they make it easy, buying directly from Gap has the same sizing problem, but returns are more difficult.
And this is assuming you can even buy some items at all, I was trying to buy baby winter gloves and local stores have almost 0 choices, stores have maybe 1 style available.
Want something that isn't made out of plastic? Buying online, or at a local speciality store (for insane $$$) is the only choice.
Sure, my choices for clothing is more limited. But at least I've got the peace of mind I personally didn't send hundreds of articles of clothing to the landfill without ever actually wearing it. Its insane to me people seem perfectly fine with the idea of buying and throwing away so many clothes doing "returns".
The number of times I've bought clothes for my children and have it not fit after paying for it so far has been 0. I've messed up a few times on my own pants thinking the same size in the same pile would be roughly the same and been burned by it, but that's just led to me to force myself to always try before I buy that specific article of clothing.
But hey, feel free to keep throwing away 72% of what you buy thinking there's nothing that could be done. 72% failure rates are just what to expect in your life, true innovation being done by the sellers at Amazon.
Every time you click "return", think "send to landfill and get a refund". Think about how much junk you've just thrown away. Does this seem sustainable? Does it seem like a good thing to you?
Baby, or kids?
I have seen 18m outfits and 3t outfits from the same retailer that are almost the same size.
Baby clothes are annoying because you can't really try them on, so you may as well buy from a place that has easy returns.
And if there's a question of if it'll fit, buy a bit big and they'll wear them soon enough without immediately becoming landfill. You can do that in the store, you can't do that when you're buying online.
Better yet, buy used or get hand me downs from friends and family. Instead of sending even more stuff to the landfill, give things a second life. If a friend offers me a box of kids clothing, I'll rarely turn it down if its at least my kids sizes or larger. They'll fit eventually.
Once again, does sending most of what you buy immediately to a landfill seem sustainable to you? Does it seem good? If not, why are you supporting it?
While the cost of transportation has been wasted, can't the store discount it / sell it on Ebay ?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/28/amazon-returns-what-really-h...
Disposal happens a lot. A huge chunk of the time that return you submit is just going into the trash. Remember that when you go to buy something you might not really need.
I don't use Amazon on principle, and still had to box and tag so far, but thanks for the warning !
For example: a clothing store accepts free returns for couple days after purchase in physical store, or doesn't try to obstruct in any way the EU-wide 14-day return policy for goods bought online? That store eventually gets flooded with returns, as some scoundrels figure they can attract their preferred kind of mates by buying expensive clothes before a party and hiding the tags (instead of removing them), and then return those clothes back to the store the very next day, to get full refund.
This is a real thing that was happening where I live, and led to clothes being much more annoying to unpack, as well as some silly rules on shoe returns, which occasionally cause pretty absurd situations (those running shoes were quickly labeled as "walking shoes, not suitable for running"; we can't accept the return because you admitted to running in them).
That use case, along with hedging your risk by buying 10 different items on-line, fully intending to return at least 8 of them, is common enough that there are businesses targeting people doing this directly (e.g. "clothing as a service" companies).
EDIT: FWIW, I do understand the desire and pleasure of figuring out a loophole in a set of rules and milking it for all its worth. But in shopping and e-commerce, following those rules to the letter selfishly almost always involves generating tremendous waste for the vendor, the society and the environment, and because of those externalities I don't think highly of such behavior.