Wife went to return a t-shirt that was the wrong size on Amamzon. Cost was around £17. She was given the option of a full refund without having to return the goods.
Why do they do that? I could understand on low value items where it might cost more to process a return than the item itself, but this was a £17 item?
They paid £2 for the T-shirt which is less than the postage and admin for handling the return.
I had a faulty pump from Wiggle, they said don't bother returning it - £27
Good for me cos it was just the hose, which I replaced cheaply 🙂
But yeah, to quote their email "..value of this item it will not be cost effective for us to ask you to return it to us" *shrug*
I could understand on low value items where it might cost more to process a return than the item itself, but this was a £17 item?
Just because you paid £17 doesn't mean that's what it cost.
Your £17 tee shirt probably cost less to Amazon than it'd cost for them to pick it up again. They can send you 2 shirts and still make plenty of profit.
Their COVID safety precautions also likely preclude them picking up most returned parcels at the moment
I suspect as a company they also have to pay for waste recycling etc on damaged goods - certainly on faulty electrical goods, whereas Joe Bloggs will just put it in the bin and it'll end up in landfill, which is cheaper (for them).
I was also surprised by this. Two Michelin power road tyres started cracking to the carcass after about 2 months and wiggle gave us a full refund with just photo evidence and then again with a pair of gloves that were too small but had been worn three times
I ordered 12 type C batteries because they were cheaper then thought nah they'll just sit here for an age, i only need 1.
Asked to return saying honestly no longer wanted...
I now have 12 C type batteries that will be here for an age.
Does anyone need any C type batteries?
If they're the ones like a fat AA battery - yes! For my doorbell 😀
Had a few like this - best one was camping beds costing c. £100 - both were damaged, took photos, none in stock to replace them so they just refunded the money - managed to bodge repairs for about £3
Non-return of faulty goods is quite common. What is the retailer going to do with them? I've also had one or two returnless returns for Amazon where the goods are fine but I decided against keeping them. I think if you do it too often they'd start to question it and ask for the items back.
We had this on a wall map. Took ages to turn up so queried it with Amazon and they sent out another one on next day delivery. The original one turned up about a week later. Dropped Amazon an email asking if they wanted to return it and they said not to bother as it wasn't cost effective.
does the T-shirt have a print? Might have been printed to order
it makes perfect sense not to expect used and faulty goods not to returned.
However with clothing bought to try for size and returned.... apparently it’s been revealed that although it’s stipulated returned stuff should be unworn/still with tags the reality is many returned clothes just go to landfill The sellers don’t want to risk their reputation by sending the returned clothes out again as new.
it’s far too common folk are buying clothes for a party, refixing the tags and returning them. It’s not worth the sellers time to scrutinise them all because the volumes of returns is huge
Binning of returned (non-faulty items) is / was common practice.
Something to think about when buying lots of clothes to 'try on'.
Expect there to be some enviro tax related to that in the near future with textiles industry being such a big resource consumer.
We had a table delivered for the hall, it had some defects so contacted the supplier and they sent a replacement with no return required. The idea was to put it on one side of the door, but the defects would've been on the exposed side. Now we've got two the damaged one sits on the other side of the door with the defective side against the wall. Not what we wanted, but a good outcome. Not a cheap item either but I guess they've got no use for damaged furniture and their margins cover these issues.
With windsurf boards replaced under warranty the importer used to ask for a photo of the serial number next to the place where you'd cut the board in half.
I had a shower tray delivered that was damaged. It was likely not an issue as the damage would be hidden. Having paid a lot of money for it I told them to arrange collection and send another one. They asked if I could dispose of it and then sent me a new one. I disposed of it on ebay damaged - 99p, no reserve, buyer collects. Got £50 from memory.
Best one I had recently, a 27 quid 1.7 metre long tube (holds fishing rods) off ebay that they sent promptly. Sadly the Parelfarce person left it outside with no note left, it was there a week, got soaked and damaged at one end. They sent a new one and asked me to dispose. Next one was damaged in the same place by being dragged by the looks of it. They sent another. 3rd one was also damaged! I gave up asked for a refund and that they collect the 3 tubes i now had that would be tricky to dispose of. They refunded and went quiet. I got 3 caps off ebay for £5 and now have 3 prefectly functional tubes better than the original! Don't need them all mind....
701arvn
Free MemberThey paid £2 for the T-shirt which is less than the postage and admin for handling the return.
Yup, something like this. Also there are drop-sales models that mean that your seller is basically just handling stuff for someone else, generally abroad, so that even if there's a UK "warehouse" all that happens is they're passing the costs of returns etc straight back up the chain to the chinese distributor, who definitely doesn't want the product back.
One thing I've noticed a lot more of recently is "We sent you the wrong thing/the auction description was false, can we refund you 25% instead?". I don't remember ever getting that til the last couple of years, now it's the first response for a lot of sellers. Sometimes it works out but most times it's just irritating
Had this a few times with Amazon
Another retailer who sent us half our order of two pairs of £10 jogging bottoms because someone didn't pick the order right have sent a 5 page form to fill in for a "damaged parcel".The real cost of processing that will be double the cost of the joggers. 🙄
