Following recent criticism, Amazon has presented a plan to destroy fewer products. In Britain alone, the web giant would take millions of products to landfill every year. By making it more attractive for third-party sellers to re-offer products, those numbers should be countered.
It involves two changes to the Fulfilment by Amazon programme, Amazon writes in a blog. Sellers who outsource logistics to Amazon can choose to re-offer products online as a returned item. Amazon checks the status of the product, the seller then determines how much the item may still cost. In addition, the web giant offers the option to offer returned products in bulk to buyers. they then still receive a small fee on these products. The plan is being rolled out in the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.
Amazon came under fire this summer after British broadcaster ITV revealed that 100,000 products are destroyed in one Scottish distribution centre every week. The US company has 24 distribution centres in the UK. In total, this therefore involves millions of products a year. In Germany and France, there was already an outcry about these practices by Amazon in 2018 and 2019. The products - from washing machines to smart TVs - are usually fine. However, checking and re-offering the products would be too expensive.
When discarding products, by the way, Amazon does not limit itself to returns. Unsold items are also destroyed. This is because parties using Fulfilment by Amazon pay for the storage of their products. For them, it is cheaper to have the products destroyed than to leave them in storage. Amazon says it donates the products itself, but journalists from ITV regularly saw 'destroyed' on product lists and trucks driving to the dump.
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