Where Do Online Orders Go When You Return Them?

While rates vary by category, it’s believed that roughly 20 percent of all online retail purchases get returned. That adds up to billions of electronics, books, shoes, home goods, and more traversing the country, bouncing from a warehouse to a dissatisfied consumer and then back to the seller.

But what happens after we print out a return slip? Do these products get resold? Should we be concerned we’ll one day get sent someone’s used Nikes—or, worse, their ill-fitting underwear?

Not quite. In a 2023 piece for The New Yorker, author David Owen reported what he learned at a “reverse logistics” convention, or a meeting of key players in the returned-items industry. In attendance was Amazon executive Nikos Papaioannou, who told Owen that only a “minimal” number of returns were resold as new. (Amazon does offer “used” versions of some items but labels them as open-box merchandise.)

“Our approach with this question is that, if the seal has been broken, if the wrap is not intact, then it’s not going back to the shelf,” Papaioannou said.

If not the shelf, then where? Depending on return shipping costs, an unwanted item may remain with the buyer. Amazon may sometimes instruct customers to simply keep their return, since the economics of paying to have it sent back fail to add up.

Retailers also make use of liquidation companies, or third-party services that find a way to repurpose returns. Depending on the product, they might redistribute it to independent retailers either individually or as part of a bulk product offer. A buyer may be able to bid on a pallet of goods, for example, paying a wholesale price in the hopes of reselling the inventory for a profit. Other liquidators may opt to work with the original manufacturer to repair goods like electronics and then pursue resale.

Where the returns ultimately wind up varies. It might be a local thrift shop, an outlet store, eBay, or even right back on Amazon, where third-party sellers can peddle their wares.

There’s also a strong possibility of returns winding up in a landfill, with the BBC estimating 5 billion pounds of waste are generated annually as a result. Liquidation companies likely reduce this amount, but for many items that lack a streamlined method for resale, getting trucked to the dump or even incinerated is an unfortunate consequence of easy returns.

Because returns invariably cut into a retailer’s bottom line, some try to intervene. Amazon, for example, sometimes alerts shoppers when an item is frequently returned. The notice can make shoppers aware that other consumers have found it unsatisfactory and that they may be better off buying something else. But when it comes to the competitive world of online retail, making returns hassle-free is part of the cost of doing business.

If you’re in any way concerned with either the potential for waste or the time it takes to deal with returning an item, you can always opt to shop at a brick-and-mortar store. It’s estimated that in-person shoppers return just one-third of the purchases that online consumers do.

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