Interstingly enough, I personally know several Amazon employees who work the returns. They have literally thrown 14k gold and sterling silver jewelry in the garbage because "it's cheaper than repackaging and reselling" according to management. And those very employees will get instantly fired if they try to take the "trash" home with them, because it's "stealing." Make it make sense.
My dad works in a food processing plant and they blend Gatorade. If they drop a few tens of grams of the formula they must throw it away because the entire batch is considered ruined. People there just swipe the formula and make it at home because you only need to mix in water and sugar, if you want sugar.
I've never bought clothes online and then returned them. I grew up dirt poor so my mentality is wear everything until it falls apart, sew it, and wear it until it disintegrates. I couldn't fathom the idea of throwing away perfectly good clothes.
@@evilsharkey8954 A year of constant wear is actually pretty good. If you want clothes that last longer, you can get work clothes and wear them casually.
If I find a brand that makes higher quality and longer lasting clothes I will pay double or more for it. I don’t want to buy new clothes every few months. That’s stupid.
In civic education classes (it was a small bit for 2 years in middle school) you learn about all of these facts retail, recycling, waste, YET, because is not a class with grades children get to be a$sh°les about it. The most display of cruelty was there , yet they are the same ppl that later would pretend they should have learned this stuff in school. Just because a class isn't interesting it might as well not have happened
I'm in my 30s and still have a few shirts from middle school. I a better place now than then, but I cannot justify buying that many clothes. I bought one pair of jeans this year because one of mine tore.
I appreciate the few retailers who are honest enough to tell me "we'll refund you, but don't return it, just donate it or regift it instead...we don't have the manpower or warehouse space to handle it."
I work for a company that actually processes and resells returns and we get an absolute ton of hate from customers for it. Everything has to be manually inspected which means it takes time for customers to see the refund at their bank. People return counterfeits in place of the originals, dirty, used, or broken stuff then complain when they don't get their money back. It's a tough problem to handle.
I think thats why Amazon usually junks the stuff, its not worth the pissed off customers taking their anger out on Amazon and to be fair they are paying for “new” not slightly new.. The high end brands burn their stuff to keep supply low and value high, even with brand new “out of season” things
I’m sure I read somewhere that there was a scam where some teens were “selling” stuff on their website, once someone bought something, they would buy it off Amazon, send it to the customer, and then return the package with trash inside to Amazon and get a full refund. Amazon’s return system is so shit that they managed to run this operation for years and “scam” Amazon for millions of dollars
I've also seen people get mad about shipping costs. Like, sorry not all companies pay slave wages, gouge independent sellers, and destroy the environment to undercharge you for shipping so you no longer know what the true cost is.
I did part time work at a UPS store around the time "Free returns" really became a thing. Our package output at the store practically tripled from just Amazon returns. Eventually Amazon rolled out it's "No Box, No Label" return system where people could just bring their items in, get a barcode scanned and leave it with us. We'd just dump the items in an 18" cubed box until full, then ship the box to a return facility. It didn't matter what the items were, we just bagged em up and fit them in the box. None of it went back to Amazon itself and I'm sure most of it ended up in the trash. We'd be shipping out at least three of those a day by the time I left.
@@ziero01 As someone that still works there. The system has gotten even worse, we have to use polybags for everything and we have to pay out of pocket for polybags, corp doesn't provide them or add additional revenue to cover the cost. Even worse, they want us to only use the branded ups boxes for amazon and those boxes cost way more than using a non-branded 18 cube of the same quality from another vendor. Now they even have "customer" packed codes but people don't read them and get upset if they threw out the original packaging, they want us to use our material to pack their return for free despite the instructions making it CLEAR that if they want packaging, they have to pay for it since amazon doesn't reimburse us at all. Now they added Happy returns, using the same polybags despite people bringing in the original bags, it's so wasteful. And we can't use anything but the polybags otherwise they'll take our monthly compensation for doing said work. And the compensation ain't much to begin with, only $5.20 per 18 cube box and each box can have to 10-40 items in it!
I was recently at the UPS store to send back some faulty IT server hardware to the company we pay support for and like of the 20 people also there, probably 18 of them all held amazon crap. So I can believe it when you say its all amazon returns... its insane.
Actually, I work in a customer return Amazon facility. We do actually take each item through a grading process. Some items go to sellable, some go back to the vendor, donations, liquidate and destroy. The only items that go to destroy are items we cannot return due to not being able to add the item into our system, or the item posing a risk to health (bugs, mold, glass, bodily fluids ect...) It's not a fun job, but it has to be done
Adam and many other people online will often hear about some bad thing that happened related to Amazon and then just RUN with it and assume that THAT is how it ALWAYS is, when they are actually just outliers. It's really annoying! I work for Amazon (in a sorting facility) and HATE working here, but all other companies I have ever worked for (which is a LOT) are worse in almost every way. If you are going to criticize Amazon you should do it right and not exaggerate!
Yea this is way over the top. It’s not entirely false, but way exaggerated. I buy stuff from Amazon Warehouse all the time. Not to mention I’ve received clearly used items (sold as new). And I know people that make their living selling used clothes online. I think a bigger problem is the scammers, and mistakes. In other words people who abuse the system, as well as straight up thieves. And people getting the wrong thing/wrong size thing, etc. Giving them no choice but to send it back. ✌️
Right. I work for a large Amazon reseller. We also go through EVERY item to see what can be repacked and sold as new or what can be sold on Ebay (or wherever) as used. That said - some items can't be resold and are destroyed by Amazon.
Lets assume though Amazon did actually just throw everything away that gets returned. They have every right to, the items are theres again. Amazon can do whatever they want with them.
@@moverton500 Are you alright? WTF does that have to do with what we’re talking about here? We’re still paying for it either way. And it’s still filling up landfills either way. So your point is completely, and utterly irrelevant. Not to be rude, but geez, think. Before typing. Not after. ✌️
The annoying thing is so many brick and mortar stores seem to have vanished or reduced their stock in response to the surge in online shopping. I often drive around looking for local places that have the things I need and end up not being able to find it.
Yes✅ which is why I’ve had to order so many items online - because stores near me don’t carry them in store (or they’re out of stock!). & For clothing - Even w/ big chain stores (Ex. Target) - Often - times if I find something I like in-store, I have no choice but to order it online if I want it - because they don’t have it in my size! All my bras I have to order online because….. stores you can shop @ in-person for them & that don’t charge over $300 per bra - rarely carry them in my size!!!!
Or, you can to go to the next worst evil on the list . . . Walmart. Which usually has something _close enough_ to do the job, but cheaply made, so it's not going to last.
@@dindindundun8211 We weren't, though. Brick and mortar dictated the selection of garbage products we had to choose from. Profitability over quality. With online shopping, we have a lot more ability to sidestep that. For me, it's hard enough to find shoes that fit me online. It's essentially hopeless at a store.
Knowing your measurements is only useful if the item they send you actually matches what it says when you buy it. There could be manufacturing error, inventory error, careless retrieval of that inventory, or they might just take the measurement as a "suggestion." So then you're stuck returning the thing anyway.
A couple of months ago I bought 3 button-up shirts, all from the same manufacturer and listed as the same size on the store website. Even though the manufacturer provided precise measurements for the sizes, the store just binned them into T-shirt size categories, so each of the shirts I received was a different manufacturer size. As a result only one of them actually fit, which was a shame because I actually wanted all 3, and the only way to get them in a correct size would be to order multiples of each in the same size and hope that the store worker would randomly pick at least one of each in the size I wanted from the 3XL bin.
It would be pretty nice if local tailors were a common thing. If you had a tear in your favorite pants or you needed something sown or adjusted, you could provide a job to someone that saves you time or money. But retail rent spaces are too high for most small businesses to not charge a lot for their time. And the fashion industry built on third-world labor makes new clothing for lower than the cost of repairs.
This!!! The amt of times I have ordered clothing items that were the exactly the same except for color/pattern & some of them didn’t fit. Also often times the actual measurements of the clothes vs their size charts/guides online are vastly different from each other. You often have to hope a reviewer who looks to have similar body measurements as you posted a picture of them wearing the item & noted what size they ordered (often-times they don’t) - & even then it could be way off.
Also sometimes the material composition of the item isn’t listed - or it’s inaccurate - so you won’t actually even know till you receive the item. {This is especially an issue when it comes to socks/athletic wear/outer-wear}
I'll never understand why people throw out perfectly good clothing. I don't think I've ever thrown clothes out unless I've outgrown it or used it to the point that it's falling apart. Edit: I did donate clothes when I outgrew them. Thrown out was a pour choice of phrase on my part.
Charities that accept clothing donations also tend to throw out anything that's been used at all or even just doesn't have a sales tag still attached. I was one of the poor bastards offloading the donation collection bins which is a nightmare in itself, back at the charity they'd be throwing out a dumpster or more worth of clothing alone every day. It's disgusting.
Shoes I do throw away when they're past their lifecycle but shirts etc I usually just use as rags when I have a water spill or painting sh*t or some other messy jobs..
@@popdogfool Okay? But if I had returned it then fs it’d get thrown away; at least giving it to someone ik there’s a higher chance it’d get used. And most of what I give away is clothing, and I make sure before giving it that it would fit the person I’m giving it to and I consider if they’d even like it in the first place, I don’t hand over just random junk💀 even if they toss it (which most ppl don’t do w clothes, they just give it away again), that’s their business and more importantly, I at least tried to give the thing another home and didn’t toss it🤷🏻
@@popdogfool sure, I def could have, but as I said in my original comment I’m lazy, but I also work full time, and don’t feel like going out of my way to pack up my order and going to the post office or a store w an Amazon drop-off to send it back (if I bought it from Amazon). Even tho packages can be sent back by just leaving it in ur mailbox, that’s only if it will fit. If it’s clothing, it’s usually sent in a kind of plastic bag which can’t rlly be reused once you open it (unless ur rlly careful not to rip it too much but that’s usually almost impossible), or sometimes it’s even put in a box that’s too large to fit in my mailbox and dropped at my door, so trying to forgo taking it to a shipping center is difficult unless you buy new packaging that can fit in ur mailbox, which is just annoying, idc if it’s not expensive, it’s creating more waste anyway. Bottom line, it’s just a hassle and the money I spent can be earned again. I don’t lose sleep over it bc I usually buy inexpensive clothes, or if it is pricey I make sure it’s worth it by reading reviews and the sizing chart if there’s one (I avoid buying it if there’s not). I’ve requested refunds tho in cases where I never got my package in the first place. But idgaf abt my $20 button up that came in the wrong color, I’ll just give it to my gram
@@kawaiiskeleton297 I'm guessing you live in an area where you have to drive to do anything? I can just take a 5 mins walk to post stuff. I guess I understand then.
As someone who works in a post office we get probably 70-80 of these every day on a normal day and during Christmas seasons, we get them in the hundreds. It's basically just mass littering disguised as a real process when you bring it to us.
I love it when companies do this! The downside for the company, though, is the gamble of people expecting to keep their disliked item. Waste more time and resources by demanding the product be returned, or create an expectation of free stuff by always saying “keep the item.” It’s a lose-lose.
@@racool911 I'm pretty sure they can see when people making more money than they do and stopped it when the pattern suggests they're gaming the system.
I don't return shit. I have clothes from when I was fucking 16 that I still wear. The shirt I'm wearing now was hand-me-down. I get far more compliments on my old thrifted clothes than any new clothes I've ever bought. It's insane to me that people return this stuff or throw it away. I even reuse my tattered clothes as bedding, hammocks, and little beds for my small animals. At least then the shit I can wear is being repurposed for something else before it's finally too torn and tattered to use anymore. In my house, we reuse just about everything. Parents need to be teaching their kids how to save money and reuse or fix older things vs just throwing them out or getting rid of them via returning. You're failing your kids teaching them otherwise and I'm judging you hard as fuck without a care in the world if you're teaching them piss poor lessons. I mean, jesus fucking christ people. Get it together. Learn how to sew and fix your damn clothes. Learn some basic skills that you can use and pass down to recycle your stuff/find other uses for your stuff/kids stuff. I've thrown out zero of our daughters clothes and made her blankets (lovies) instead. Her toys are thrifted toys that we've fixed and cleaned up that she's loved and given new life to. Hell, my garden was literally made from old food scraps that happened to sprout or enriched the soil. You don't have to be the person buying all their clothes from thrift stores or reusing every little thing. However, at least taking the time to stop yourself from impulse buying or finding a use/way to fix an item bought online vs returning it or throwing it in the trash is a very small thing anyone can do. There is no need to buy everything online only to return everything you've bought and it's an utter shame (and detriment) that this is the norm now.
i work at Amazon processing returns. Its a 5 hr shift with about 30 to 40 people. Each shift we process between 4k to 5k returns. They expect around 80% of returns to be resellable. If you ever get an item in a clear polybag with green lettering, you know that item has been bought and returned, maybe even more than once
@@jasonj5862I understand the returns are occasionally restocked, the question is how many are sent back to facility vs those which aren't. Some sellers have restocking fees for this reason. Someone has to open the return, repackage whatever requires it, then get it logged back into inventory. Also notice how this video revolves around clothing specifically. I haven't heard much on products like automotive OEM or aftermarket, home decor, or most electronics in the video. Turbo kits, toasters and TVs are more likely to be returned and bought again as opposed to a pair of shoes or a shirt or crop-top. Apologies for the ADHD essay...😅
I work at an Amazon returns only warehouse. I can confirm we put a HUGE amount of returns in the "donation" or "destroy" sections. But the vast majority it there because the vendor didn't want it back, or it is returned in TERRIBLE condition and is unsellable. Additionally it is actually less expensive to destroy alot of it than it is to store it and later resell it. But the returns ARE free for you. Amazon gives your money back on pretty much anything and does it immediately.
Unfortunately in many cases if the vendor is selling through amazon, they often take the hit on the loss when the product is damaged because Amazon gives them their money back but the product is returned to the supplier in a damaged state where they can no longer use it even though they are out the money for a product that is unsellable.
I disagree with your statement on Amazon. I am a dumpster diver in a town near me. There is a Amazon return mail place I will call it. In there dumpster I fine over 100+ return boxes i fine unopened in there dumpster say out of them 5 boxes are junk, the other 95 are new unused items that I resell for half of the price they sold for.
They are not free for anyone that buys stuff anywhere. You obviously don’t understand economics at all. We all pay for everything that costs companies money. Like shoplifting as another example. Companies set a margin they want to meet. And they meet it almost every time, because any thing that gets in the way of that is just added to the prices we pay. And prices don’t rise in a bubble. If Amazon, Walmart, or Best Buy for instance. Raise their prices. The others follow along. And they call it inflation, blame it on rising costs, or whatever sounds good ATM. We live in an economic “system” where everything is related. So even though you didn’t pay for that return at the time. We all, including you, pay for it in the end. So no they are not free. Unfortunately. ✌️
Take prices into account, please. Natural resource and labor are factored in the prices. You may think that buying used or repairing is more moral and less wasteful, but this is not ALWAYS the case. Think of the ease of automation in making a modern complex CPU for example and the difficulty (almost impossibility) of repairing it. Repair is often more difficult to automate in mass (repair is not always the same, many things can go wrong, it needs troubleshooting to find out the reason, which requires cognition). Think of the man-hours and CO2 emissions it would take compared to making a new one! The free market is efficient! IF the price of buying new is cheaper than repair, THEN buy new. IF the price of buying used (or organic/environmentally friendly or whatever is the current fad etc.) is less expensive, THEN buy that. Consider the paper vs plastic straws... Plastic straws are easier to make, they use less resources, less energy. Much less in fact. Paper straws are bad for the environment and bad for the consumers. Do not let any corporation fool you into buying more expensive, less effective products for so-called moral reasons. They are bullshitting you to make you pay more or pay for lesser products! They use fear and guilt to prevent you from thinking.
Same! The wakeup call I needed. I was going to return a GAP sweater that's too big even though it's my normal size but now I think I'm just gonna try to shrink it in the wash... 🤞
@@HANU8no, the price of a $2 sweater/gadget does not account for the cost of making the sweater anymore. Not when companies like T*** are charging extremely low prices as they try to overtake markets. Or if that’s really how much a person was charged, that’s inhumane.
I work for Whole Foods and I spend WAY too much of my time processing returns for people who ( true story ) bought THIRTY FIVE ties to see which one he liked best . I despise the entitled waste-based culture Amazon has forced on us all .
@@robgronotte1no. Adam is exaggerating everything for a video. Items are sorted. Then resold for full price, a discount, or discarded for bulk sale or trash. It depends. It’s not an automatic trash. And ime only about 5% goes to trash
One change that would greatly reduce clothing waste is to standardize on sizing. When you buy a medium size shirt online, you really don't know if it will fit until you receive it. That's why people buy multiple sizes and return the sizes that didn't fit.
Thank you, I wish I could like this comment several times. Amazon does try and they let you vote on whether the item was true to size for others who may want to buy that item, but since there is no standard it's still kind of a hope and a prayer.
That mostly comes down to the weight of the item since every order gets weighed before being shipped and clothing items are one of the top things that fail to get shipped because of a weight discrepancy
the problem is mostly women's size's . men is easy to figure out size . women have many different shapes on the torso. big but small but big breast small breast etc.
@@ronblack7870 Doesn't really matter. Standardizing sizing (and quality control) would still eliminate a large number of returns. I wear a M in a unisex (men's) t-shirt, but in a women's shirt I could wear anything from a L to an XXL. And it varies from brand to brand. That unisex tee? I wear a medium regardless if it's Hanes, Jerzees, Fruit of the Loom, or Bella Canvas. That women's shirt; I could wear an XL in a red shirt and a XXL in the exact same shirt in blue made by the same company.
I have legit started thinking about making my own clothes. A couple months ago I fully hand-sewed a 19th century regency shirt and it was both so relaxing to sew and then so nice to wear as a thing that I made for myself that fit me... And though it costed around €25 for a single shirt, I know it's going to last a damn long because it's linen and the stitches are so tight and well done (even as a starter) that it will take a LOT for it to break or deteriorate beyond repair. And the best thing is that with the remaining scraps I can even alter it and add more fabric if needed if I ever change size... Now I'm seriously considering doing the same with a pair of trousers. Maybe some nice black jeans?
Sewing is the gift that keeps on giving. As is knowing how to knit and crochet. I always say I learned how to sew as an act of self-defence. Even back in the days when I was painfully thin, my hips were one and a half size wider than my waist. I couldn’t find a pair of pants to fit me correctly. So I learned how to sew. It meant I could alter my clothes to fit me. Or I could sew my own from fabric I bought, thrifted or that was donated to me. My mother and grandmother taught me how to sew, knit and crochet. My clothes fit me better, last longer and I take care of them better because it took effort to make them or alter them to my liking. I choose more carefully, because it takes time and effort, I don’t want to waste all that and think “Nah!” or have it languish in my closet. I’m able to dupe really expensive designer items for very little money. It’s addictive though, and soon you find yourself with a stash of fabrics, yarns, buttons, etc. But if you’re selective in what you allow to enter into your house, it’s definitely worth the time and effort, and it can save you A LOT of money. It’s better dor the environment because you will tend to re-use, repair and alter rather than throwing out things you don’t want to wear anymore. I also find it comes in handy for gifts. Ripped a cotton shirt? Use the fabric along with some other cotton fabric from an old piece of clothing, add some batting and you’ve got some pot holders for Christmas for Cousin Alice who loves to cook and bake. Two or three pairs of old jeans and you’ve got plenty for a beach bag for Auntie May, whom you need pliers to pry her off the beach as soon as temperatures rise… and it’s got a handy pocket for that suntan lotion she always brings and never uses. Learned to knit? Socks for Uncle Frank who’s always got cold feet (you’ve ripped apart that sweater that was too small because… well… chocolate. And bacon). While you’re at it, here’s a beanie for the twins Little Frank and Big Mike who are addicted to hiking, even at sub zero temperatures. Learned to crochet? Cousin Frieda is a goth and there.s that lovely pattern for a shawl with little skulls on it. You found some perfect crocheting cotton at the thrift store and it’s enough for the shawl, it cost you only two dollars and fifty cents. And time. But instead of zonking out of the TV you’re putting on a podcast or an audiobook and making presents… the only thing that can happen is that you started on that skull shawl back in September, and by Christmas Cousin Frieda has decided she’s not a goth anymore. She’s a vegan, shaved her head (make an extra beanie) and only wears white. Good thing that sweater you ripped apart was white. Either rip apart the skull shawl, or gift it to another angsty teenager … or use it for Halloween and go as Morticia Addams. Thing is, gifted items that have been lovingly made will often be well received and a lot cheaper than store bought. At worst, they cost the same because you can thrift or re-use a lot of things once you get going. You can also learn how to mend things, it doesn’t need to be invisible. When my daughter was small, I had an extremely tight budget and she had a talent for ripping her pants at the knees. I’ve lost count of the patches I’ve sewed onto them. The fabric for those patches was always from old clothing. Hearts, squares, rectangles, triangles in contrasting colours, with a bot of embroidery added to make it look like the patch was a decoration that was put there on purpose. Ass some of the same fabric at the top of the pockets and/or on the cuffs and the illusion is complete. Embroider a few flowers here and there to cover up a stain that won’t wash out. For 1 USD of embroidery thread that dress that had become unwearable was saved. For some time and a few bits of an old shirt and those pants would last until she grew out of them… or ripped a new hole in them (another patch! Yay!). I’ve also discovered my daughter respects the things I make more than the things I simply buy for her. She’s an adult now but in her early teens I’ve heard her tell off her friends because they were goofing off with a hat and scarf I’d made for her. “Hey, it took my mother two weeks to make those! It’s not like I can just go out and buy a new one!” Also: discover the value of fabric dye. If a tub of dye costs less than an item of clothing that can be dyed and has a permanent stain on it, consider dyeing it in a dark colour that will cover the stain. Rather than throwing out the garment, dye it. The garment won’t head for the landfill and you’ll save money because you don’t need to replace it. Instead, you’ll simply have a ‘new’ garment in a different colour. If you’re considering making more of your own wardrobe, I’d say heck yes, go for it. If you can, see if you can find a good second hand (or new) sewing machine. Learn more about sewing by hand. Learn about fabric quality and see if knitting and crochet appeal to you. Learn how to make a garment last and stay beautiful with the right care. Learn about visible mending (a blessing and with some truly beautiful results that can be quite chic). Strike up a few conversations with the elderly and see what they can teach you. Trawl UA-cam for tutoring. Learn about stash busting projects as well because you will need them over time. What for me did come out of bitter necessity, has grown into a useful hobby now that I’m much better off financially. It’s still frugal, but not a need anymore. It’s an enjoyable choice. My wardrobe doesn’t entirely consist of things I made myself but a lot of it is at least altered, and if it gets damaged most of the time I can either save it, or re-use it in something else. Unless it’s so worn it falls apart completely. Some items are over thirty years old because they’ve been reworked several times and no one would know. The items I do buy are quality pieces, either bought new or thrifted. I can afford them because I don’t need to buy clothing often and buying quality means it lasts longer and is more easily ‘recyclable’ back into my wardrobe (or my daughter’s) in another form. All because I learned how to sew out of necessity. Sorry for the looooong reply. I just thought it might be helpful for you as you’re debating whether you should sew more. My vote would be firmly ensconced in the “yes” camp. Happy sewing! Ps: hopefully not too many typos! My eyes are tired and I’m too lazy to get up for my glasses.
I like what adam said at the end of the video about not blaming the consumer but still showing the power consumers have. Blaming it on the consumer is exactly what big corporations like amazon want us to do because it shifts the blame from them.
Amazon offers a service and if the consumer finds it worth their money they will use it. Amazon destroyed eBay and most other retailers with their business model. Consumers decided it worked better else Amazon would have to change it to survive. It is 100% on the consumer.
Yep, awareness can do a lot choices that might alone be not much, but if many do it and it might affect somewhat the profit. If amazon is only used when nessesary and not returned, a lot doing it makes a difference, probably, if not that visible.
What do you want him to say? Start a revolution so that every 50 years we can vote on the system we want, giving the people real democracy and making systems better by introducing competition in the structure? Divorce political and economic power by requiring politicians to be in politics for life and never work for private corporations? That's the kind of deep change we need but very few people will dare go there
@@EdithEsquivel TLDR: You can't look at things with an eye to "fix" capitalism or the existing political system. A revolution that seeks to do either will only end up perpetuating them and backsliding towards the old status quo. Because that's what those systems incentivize based on how they function and are structured. If you want deep change you need to go away from a republican model of government and a capitalist model of economics entirely. Keep the social mode of production, but throw out the top-down structure entirely. Democratize everything so that you don't have to make all kinds of rules every time a new way for politicians and capitalists to game the system crops up, in part because it's the politicians themselves who would be making the rules with the guidance of the capitalists. ---- That kind of change wouldn't fundamentally change anything. You can't divorce political and economic power. That's just something people are taught to believe you can do...by capitalists, because "it's not real/pure/true capitalism if government is involved." Politicians WILL be heavily influenced by private corporations whether you like it or not, and they'll be MORE influenced by corporations and individuals than the people they are supposed to represent. Because that's how systems like that (republics, whether capitalist or statist) are designed; the more money and power you have the more access you have to the people making decisions, the less you have the less access you get, and it's far more likely that a politician will listen to the few who have good access than the disorganized masses who don't have any kind of coherent message. You're basically suggesting a statist model mixed with capitalism, which is that the state controls everything while somehow not controlling anything, and "competition" makes sure that prices are manageable and goods are quality. Part of competition is in wages. In order to compete a business needs to make money, and in order to make money it needs to cut costs. Labor is one of the biggest and first costs to get cut. It's certainly the most consistently cut cost. That's how capitalism functions in the imperial core. A LOT of labor is outsourced to poorer countries where people will work for pennies out of desperation. If everything was made in the imperial core then wages would be even lower than they are. If everything was made in the imperial core AND wages were livable then prices would be much higher, leading to people buying cheaper goods from the periphery so that they could save some money and get ahead. Every time people try to "fix" capitalism there are certain things that go un-addressed and end up undermining their efforts. The social democracies of Europe are backsliding with austerity because they maintained the capitalist system, and the incentive of capitalism is to make more profits no matter the cost to society. Voting every 50 years wouldn't change anything. Democracy isn't just voting; voting is nothing more than tallying support for one thing or another without actually getting the people voting involved in coming up with the ideas themselves. Democracy is being part of the whole decision-making process, because it means "rule of the people," not "let the people decide to accept which of the few will rule." That's something that capitalism is massively threatened by. Competition won't actually improve the system, but hamstring it by making it more likely to revert to standard capitalism. If you want deep change you can't cling to the things that were part of the problem in the first place. If you want deep change you need a cooperative economy, not a competitive one, and it needs to be democratically designed (meaning that everyone participates) and tweaked instead of made by "some smart person" for everyone else to vote on.
9:52 Having worked at Fedex/Kinkos, I've experienced that jump of 30%+ in returns firsthand, but lemme tell a quick story: at our store, we didn't have recycling pickups. So ALL cardboard went straight to the trash. But customers returning crap would always say "Hey could you recycle this?" as a way of pawning off their old boxes on us to throw away for them. Well, eventually I got sick of implying the lie that we recycle and started bluntly telling them "No we don't recycle here but I can throw it in the trash for you." And hooooo boy let me tell you, this made a lot of customers mad, but NOT mad enough to still pawn off their boxes to us. They didn't resent that we don't recycle, they resented that I made them face the fact that they actually - deep down - didn't give a shit about recycling, they just wanted to get rid of the box and not think about it any more, and by being blunt, I was ruining their little fiction. Only about 1 in 10 ever responded by saying "Oh never mind then, I'll recycle it myself". The rest just got salty and gave the box to me anyway. Very much enjoyed doing that.
@@ev25zv Oh yeah that's a whole separate discussion: bullshit recycling programs that throw most of what's in the recycling bins straight in the garbage.
@@dannydaw59 A few returns programs are consolidated. So they bring the item, its given an identifying sticker, and added to a big box full of other stuff that all gets sent together.
I know you're talking about averages when you say "we each throw out" but that "we" is doing so much work. I haven't bought new clothes in more than 4 years. Yes I know it's stupid to even post this but I was like NO this is something that can be controlled, people can CHOOSE to stop buying clothes in excess and returning them in excess.
I totally feel you on this and agree. The only clothes that I ever dispose of are ones I've worn holes through beyond the point of repair. The terrifying thing to consider, then, is that someone is throwing away enough pounds of clothing per year to make up for us who don't do that.
They cannot actually, this isn't the choice of average people, is the choice of the corporations, it's a systemic issue, they produce a lot already knowing most of it will be thrown away.
One of the worst parts of living in poverty, is knowing I'm mostly not part of the problem, but in no position to make a difference. All I have ever been able to do is watch wealthy people ruin everything, while doing their best to blame it on me. Happy New Year everyone..........
@@bluester7177Most of us are actually middle class and absolutely can do something about it, but we like cheap, convenient, and disposable. What really irks me is how many people are strongly pro-union, pro-environment, anti-billionaire, and/or for immediate changes to minimize climate change, but then they buy fast fashion on Shamazon or Temu as if that isn’t a massive contributor to everything awful.
Look into the worldwide strike that’s being organized right now it’s main focus is for Palestine BUT it’s a great organizing effort that if we all join together hopefully we can realize that it doesn’t have to stop there, and we could find ways to make a difference as a whole
Happy to hear that I'm not part of this problem. I wear stuff til it literally falls apart, and the only clothes I order online are tee shirts, and as long as I get a medium, I know it's gonna fit. If I need new pants or shorts, I go to a store to try them on first.
I'm kind of disgusted to learn people do this. Pretty much the only thing I've ever returned was a piece of electronics that literally looked like it fell off the back of a truck. I figured it out years ago. I had ordered a simple USB drive that got lost in shipment. Amazon said, "Oh, we'll send another." When I asked what I should do if the lost item appeared, the rep said, "Just keep it, it's not worth sending back to us." One honest employee taught me a very important lesson.
omg, that happened to me too only with a CD player. It didn't show up on time, so I told customer service. the guy said he'd send a replacement free. the next day, I got the one I ordered first. Being honest, I told customer service and they said, "ok, keep it."
happens a lot. Box of kcups got delivered to my house, wrong address. Call and asked if someone could pick it up and take it to the right address, nope. Asked if they could get in touch with the person to let them know it was going to be delayed, nope. Asked what they wanted me to do with it. Ahh, just throw it out.
Yeah, the only thing I’ve ever returned is a string of fairy lights that were advertised as LED but were actually incandescent bulbs which means I didn’t get the item I was promised. I returned them and reported the listing because that’s actually dangerous, incandescent bulbs can get really hot and burn someone’s house down! They can be dangerous to have around small children and pets. I was livid
There are entire online clothing, shoes, etc sites where they promote this behavior - "We will ship you 5 styles, just return the 4 you don't like and pay for 1".
And the crappy thing is the salvation army and charity thrift shops have started to convert to trying to make as much profit as possible instead of providing cheap clothing and goods for the poor. We have our charity thrift selling old kmart shirts more expensive than kmart.
Yup. Because it's not just the poor that shop there. In fact, it's mostly NOT the poor. It's people looking for cheap stuff to resell online. That's why I won't even bring my items there anymore. I only donate to local, vetted places that give the goods to low-income parents, direct to shelters, or I sell myself and do things like buy xmas gifts for low-income kids or buy families food. Dropping stuff off at Savers or "Sallys" is just putting $ in the wrong hands.
@@adntigger71015 I don't understand why people are convinced that because some depop resellers are buying vintage goods from thrift stores that a majority of the clothing there is not sold to the poor people of our nation. Most of the clothes in thrift stores are disgusting and horrible quality. Most of those depop girlies would rather dropsell garbage from alibaba than go inside a real thrift store. At least where I live, thrift stores are usually cheap as hell, super low quality, and filled with people that are either super visibly below the poverty line or teenagers with no money. (think family of 5 still wearing their work uniforms looking for shoes or kids all talking about how some random halloween costume would look so good at some party)
I thought those thrift shops are meant to fund whatever non-profits run them. The Salvation Army runs thrift stores to find their ministries to help drug addicts and felons get their lives back on track. Smaller non-profits do this too. I have never heard the stores themselves are meant to help anyone. The stores are a place for the felons/addicts to work and build a work history. Having to work at a day job is a component of many drug rehabs, as a part of restarting a healthy life
@izzyxblades I never heard about the work history part. But these charity thrift stores have two goals. Raise money for their cause and also provide cheap clothes (mostly) and other goods so disadvantaged people can afford them. They get generous government subsidies and tax exemptions to run. Now they are seeking goods close to or over what they are in the retail shops. The ads I've started to see are now trying to get young people to buy from them as a fashion statement. It means money they make now goes to marketing and bonuses and the best things that disadvantaged families could use are being bought out by rich kids and opportunistic jerks.
@adntigger71015 it used to be poorer families that shopped there. Clothing and furniture were the biggest sellers. Now, they are getting squeezed out of the market.
Great job, Adam! Lately I did notice Amazon refunding me the amount and telling me to keep it, without explanation. I only do prime, not because of the "free" returns or "free" shipping, it's because I can bring the items to Whole Foods and also pickup from a locker. The lines at the post office used to be so long for these returns, and sometimes UPS is the same. Dropping it off at Whole Foods is easier. I also do my research - - I went to purchase a Ninja blender at a local store (let's say Target, Walmart) and at the time it was $199 to get the item. I shelved the item on list until my son officially broke it. I went on Amazon and it was $99, so there are items lower in cost on Amazon. All in all, the fees are better because they can be delivered to Whole Foods or your house, especially if your in a temporary situation where your car is out of commission until it can be repaired
I just recently went to a mall to go clothes shopping... They had almost nothing worth having and it was just all over the store with no rhyme or reason. Capitalism has ruined the one thing they were supposed to do, selling things. It just sucks trying to buy things now.
And Heaven help you if you have an odd size or proportions. I can spend all day going to two Walmarts, the mall, and a few other stores and likely find nothing that fits. I don't even care about what's fashionable. If pants fit and are a solid color, I buy them.
It's such a vicious cycle too. I prefer buying clothes in person, but because of the rise of online shopping it's harder and harder to find what you want in a store. So I either can't get what I want, spend all day going to every possible store, or do what I hate and buy it online - only to probably return it because it's low quality or doesn't fit as advertised. This literally just happened to me with an electronic picture frame. I bought one online and it was broken when it showed up. I sent it back, and decided to look for one in stores. No store that I've looked in yet in my own town or another have had an electronic picture frame. So I either....don't buy one, drive to yet another city and hope, or buy one online. Ridiculous.
@@jeffreythomson3789 Last time I purchased in store: they were pushing online shopping so hard that they offered a discount to mail the garment home for me.
@@johanobesusfatjohn5836I feel this, for me it's pants and boots I can never find, I'm not even overweight just weird proportions ig. Boots are so hard to find.
I stopped buying Christmas presents, and asked my family to stop buying me stuff. If they want to give me a present, an hour of their time playing a board game I like will do.
@@Spiziked23 I have all the games I grew up with. Like literally the exact game. And I'm old! Some of the boards are held together with packing tape! 🤣 But also, if you're going to play the game, it's worth buying, no?
So I worked at an Amazon warehouse that specialized in apparel. There was a huge returns section. And some stuff would go to “refurb” or “damageland,” but most of the stuff would go right back into storage to be sold later. In fact, our quota was so high and claiming stuff was damages was so discouraged that a lot of people would glance at or totally ignore the products they were supposed to inspect to see if they were still sellable. It may be because we were an old Zappos warehouse, so a lot of our returns were shoes, but a vast majority of our products were properly returned for later use.
I guess you were in one where maybe regulations forced them to. Was in in europe?! I just cant believe amazon did it out of free will, probably the waste was taxed or something over a quota?!
If the returns are mostly destroyed or sold at a fraction of original cost to liquidator warehouses, I'm curious how Amazon is capable of running its Try Before You Buy program, which literally encourages order-to-return... How can that be financially viable for a company to operate like that? They've lost money & product the moment the customer hits return, right? If I do 5 orders of $500 in Try Before You Buy shoes and end up returning all of them, you're telling me all of that ends up at a third party, and Amazon is perfectly fine with losing hundreds of dollars of product at a fraction of its value?
another crazy thing is that only 20% of donated clothes make it to second hand stores. the other 80% gets sold to contractors that get resold in developing countries at higher costs
And there's mountainous piles of clothing in these places because there's too much. I've made it a habit to always click the ads for polyester clothing then not buy it, bad for the environment (microplastics), bad for wearing (holds onto BO too easily), so itt the least I can do to make it bad for their pocket book so maybe they try something else.
We try to make all donations directly to local charity thrift shops. We have either the RCC (Resource and Crisis Center), a local charity that either sells the itmes at their thrift store, and uses the proceeds to benefit families in need, or sometimes they just give the donations directly to those families (especially furniture and appliances). Or the DAV (Disabled Veterans) thrift store. Never give to Goodwill or any large donation center. This applies to monetary donations as well. Don't give to United Way or other clearinghouse charities, as most of your money never makes it to those in need. Give directly. With some things, like clothes, you can even drive down a city street and just throw them -at- to homeless people who need them.
And when it's shipped off to poor countries, it completely undermines and destroys local retailers. "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Flood a man with fish, and you'll destroy the local fisheries."
I went to the salvation army for drug rehab. We would work 8 hours a day without pay. We would fill entire semi trucks with clothes to send to third world countries.
@@GTAVictor9128+ Workers there have to select whats actually worth and whats crap. And, all the crap they have they can't send away to other countries. Which means that when international structures weight the amount of trash produced by countries, it's the poorest one that are punished for this overflow of production. Which "give an argument" (not that they need them to exist) to some racist rethorics about "how the US or Europe don't pollute that much compared to Africa and how pointing Northern countries when we talk about environmental issues is reverse racism" or other s**t like this.
I worked at a Zappos warehouse in the returns department. The returns process there was EXACTLY what he said DOESN'T happen. We opened boxes, unwrapped and refurbished them, folded them nicely and repackaged them for resale. Interesting to know we were such a minority
Honestly I took a lot of this video with a massive pinch of salt when he acted like it's nonsensical to subscribe to Prime for free shipping. Yes, it's not technically "free," but the amount it costs per month still is significantly less than shipping costs would be once you do the math. That's the entire point of the service. Ditto how he acted like it's surprising that there are more clothes than people....that just kinda seems common sense(and I don't know who the hell is throwing out 100lbs of clothes?).
@@sprouting_lady Here's a little secret: Amazon gifts prime subscriptions constantly. I get 4-5 months of free prime per year because they keep trying to entice me to sign up by offering me a free month (which I cancel every month). I've never paid for Prime, but I've been using it for about 4 years. I've never paid for shipping on Amazon. Even when they don't offer me a free subscription, if you have $25 in goods in your checkout, shipping is free anyways. As for the 100lbs of clothes, that's the average. There's no doubt someone out there throwing out 900lbs of clothes while 8 other people throw out none. Sort of the same line of thinking about "whales" in mobile games. Most people play for free, but someone else out there spent hundreds of dollars on in-app purchases.
@@sprouting_lady I took it as him making the argument that your paying for your shipping in both the prime monthly fee, but also increased prices to balance out the shipping costs. Not to mention people with prime purchase far more than non prime members, its really to commit you to Amazon, as you've already bought in. Hard to justify buying elsewhere and paying shipping, when Amazon is giving it for "free". Also, the 100lbs of clothing tossed is all textiles in municipal waste, per capita, so does include industrial/commercial waste as well. Its also a rough estimate, but does give an idea on the quantity of textile waste created, just not how much each person is personally throwing away.
@@sprouting_ladyyou're paying less than you would without prime, but still more (or the same) than if prime didn't exist at all. To subsidize the shipping costs you're not paying first hand, the price of the stuff you buy goes up. That's how it works. So today it does make sense if you buy a lot online, because if you don't have it you pay the subsidized price AND other shipping costs on top, you're basically paying for shipping twice. I have prime too, I buy online quite a bit (and where I live it's 19€/year for students!), but I recognize it's basically just marketing. I pay for the shipping, it's just not called "shipping costs" anymore. It's in the product price itself.
@@sprouting_ladyShipping is even without prime free in almost all cases, at least here in Europe, unless you keep ordering a tiny and silly amounts of small stuff that a grocery store within 1 minute walking distance would have for you anyway.
I caught myself being "free-return" brained when I went to a UPS store to ship out a piece of stained glass to a friend and when the employee asked me which shipping option I wanted I literally asked which one was free. She stared at me until I realized what I said. Super embarrassing lol
my only fixation with free shipping is that it's so damn difficult to find what i want in a physical store. i tried to buy a kitchen torch last month. pretty standard gadget/utensil, right? they certainly sell the butane in store. but the torch itself? nobody had it. and my options to buy online were either a $7 torch with $6 shipping, or a $13 torch with free shipping. i actually went for the $7 one, because it came in a color i liked, but that package has been sitting in a distribution center in waxahatchie for 3 weeks so i gave up, got a refund for my "lost" item, and ordered the $13 one which arrived at my house the next day.
@@dietotaku maybe not helpful now, but hardware stores like Lowes and Home Depot 100% carry these torches. Its a tool that the cooking industry only recently popularized.
Home Depot doesn't beat Amazon on price on any brand name item. Amazon will bring most items to my door next day for the same price as going to HD and wasting time and gas.
@@Thunder.Sizzle right but the benefit of buying at a hardware store is you don't have to wait to cook or bake something on a different day than the day you wanted to. You're stating an obvious fact in opposition to something that the other poster may not have known. That's simply not helpful.
I rarely return items from Amazon…but the other day I did and I waited for a shipping label only to be told “no need to return this item”. I felt bad that I was actually keeping something and getting a refund. 😮
I sometimes fall head over heels into Amazons’ “we”ll refund your item, no need to send it back happy place”. I ended up with a $50 uncomfortable bath robe I didn’t pay for or return
So you're blaming Amazon for your inability to take the trouble to put the item back in its box and set it back on the porch to be picked up? That sounds pretty lame.
@@BrightBlueJimif Amazon determines you don't have to return the item, they won't pick it up or provide a label, and returns don't go to the same address from the package, so what are you supposed to do? It's not an option. The thing to do is find someone else in your life who will use the item or donate it
We have 2 areas in my Amazon warehouse solely dedicated to destroying the items you returned. 2 teams of people working 24 hours a day, just destroying stuff. All day, everyday
Putting aside the obvious issue of how wasteful it is, that sounds kinda depressing if you have to do it all day everyday. ...but tbh it'd probably be fun for a couple hours or so xD
Thrift shopping sadly has its own evils attached to it, but not as bad as buying new. The evil is really just everyday sclapers, who wait until loading day at DAV, St. Vincent Depaul, Salvation Army and Goodwill, then buy up all the good items, and resell them on ebay... I could understand this practice if it was someone who cannot hold a job, but often the people I ran into who do this already earn well, and do this as their own "side hustle" for vacations, or they can more comfortably bump up their 401k at their main job because the extra money they bring in selling things on ebay and facebook marketplace
I've always liked buying clothes from thrift shops because I know that they are already broken in. If they are going to shrink in the wash, it's already happened, if there are dyes that are going to bleed in the wash, it's already happened, if there was a manufacturing defect that would cause it to fall apart after a couple of weeks, it wouldn't have lasted long enough to be donated. Not only am I saving money, but I've let someone else deal with all the potential pitfalls of brand new clothes for me.
I would, but I don't like the idea of wearing something that's been worn by someone else. I do however support resell shops in other ways, like hunting down rare games, and other "nerd" items(not to resell myself I'm a collector, "scalpers" are my competition. And, I have a neice and nephew who both take after me some how, when it comes to gaming and other "nerd" ways, so they are gifted at times as well, just saying I'm not 100% selfish like those a**hole scalpers.)
I remember back to circa 2015, if a shipment arrived damaged you could/have to send pictures of the damage done and they would refund you with no need to return (same if it was different than descriptions or whatever), now they removed the options of sharing pictures in chats and always have to return.
I had to start making my own clothes a few years ago due to some developing hypersensitivities. I am so, so very grateful that I can do that now, it's a massive game changer. No surprise polyester, all seams are sturdy, no shrinking during first washes, and the ability (and extra fabric) to repair the vast majority of damage that does happen due to wear and tear. It's strange how that feels almost like a weird counter-culture thing now.
Are you able to prevent irritating seams? I’m considering doing this kind of thing because I can’t handle seams but it’s literal sewing so idk if there any good solution
You can go flat felled seams on most seams which are generally pretty confortable. But also you can make things that don't have tags, that only use fabric that feels good on your skin, fit you perfectly etc, and that makes a big difference.
@@TatharNuar I know I'm not the target for the question but, a lot of fabric stores like JOANN offer classes to teach beginners how. I also know some community centers and knitting clubs allow new members to sign up online and pick some things up. You can also look into community colleges/technical schools mainly for courses in theater costume design (will teach you to make normal clothes too) and "life long learning" or similar sounding courses. The latter are classes for mainly retirees to learn various life skills they never had a chance to learn before. Like sewing or playing guitar for example.
@@thebeaside Yes, that. Flat-felled seams, along with altering waistbands to be broader and using comfortable fabric (I make and wear a lot of flannel skirts these days, they work amazingly well for me).
As a former employee of Costco I can tell you they do make every effort to resell any returns they receive. The only exception is food (by law) which is composted if possible. Only a very small fraction of items go back to the manufacturer or to sites like Dlisted. I do agree with buying second hand first and try to do so as much as possible!
@@summerjohnson9749 owner of a small grocery store, its true any food items returned are thrown out, another fun fact, we have to throw out any fresh food items (veggies-meats etc.) out if you decide at the checkout you don't want it. had a customer just on Friday decide they didn't want about 50 dollars worth of greens, saw me throw them in the trash behind the register. Asked me why I am throwing them out, I told her that after a customer touches them I have to by law, then she had the nerve to ask me to give them to her. I told her nope you just cost me 50 in sales and I will have to sell about 500 dollars more in groceries just to break even. Most people do not understand Grocery stores are the lowest profit margin business to run maybe if we are luck about 3 percent.
@@summerjohnson9749Nah, they want you to return things you don't like. Costco has no problem shifting to a different item when people return it frequently. If you get rotten or gross food, and a lot of others return it too, they know the quality is not up to par. In the long run, it actually helps! Costco is just the exception :) Please feel free to return anything that isn't to your standards!
It usually isn’t a big source of returns (food). Most people only return food if there is something wrong with it. The worst is when people have parties and buy lots of food and return half. I saw a person try to return 50 packages of hot dogs after a graduation party. I know some locations do inform these people that the food will be thrown away and in courage them to donate any unopened products to local food banks.
Amazon isnt the only ones. I just tried returning a SEALED box of cepacol lozenges that i bought from my local walmart and they said it was going straight in the trash. I asked why and they said any item bought from the pharmacy area, even if still perfectly sealed, goes straight in the trash becase it could have been "tainted" or something along those lines. I ended up keeping the item instead because of that and cancelling the refund. What a complete waste!
Adam, you left out some important points...All my Amazon returns have been from misrepresented descriptions/photos of the item or the exact thing I wanted arrives damaged because of shitty packaging. Those two things are solely caused by Amazon's business practices. People know this and would not buy without the free returns. Sure, people abuse the system, but that's not the main problem.
^this. I have to rely on the refunds & free returns, because otherwise I'd be spending hundreds on the completely wrong item. Like last month when they sent me a vacuum instead of the monitor I ordered. Companies throwing away returns is still a problem, and there are certainly some commodities that might be better off to get not online (like clothing).
Another thing I’ve sold on Amazon and had customers take that position against somethings they have bought and it doesn’t get thrown away, Amazon literally ships it back to me after they verify if the customers claim is accurate or not
Yep, I started watching this because I do buy on Amazon a lot (I don't have a lot of money and Im trying to build a small business) and I wanted to know what he was going to say, but he focused heavily on clothing and I very rarely buy clothing on there (and do look at sizes so I haven't had to return it and if its wrongly sized I've given it away). I do have to do returns, but it's always because of exactly what you said - wrong item sent, broken, listed wrong or had misleading listings, etc. None of this is my fault, so the returns process *should* be free because I definitely shouldn't pay to send them back. That said, it's good information to have. I just wish he didn't focus so heavily on fast fashion, because that's only a portion of what is returned.
Right, but he does kind of cover this. I imagine he'd say, *don't buy these things online*. If you find it in a store you're way less likely to be sold something deceptive
Why are you repeatedly buying from a platform known for misleading product listings? At this point, I buy in person and local for important items. Or I buy from speciality online stores with solid reviews. Surely better for a small business to do so then go through the cost and hassle of misleading items?
I wish they weren't allowed to use the term "return". It's not a return if they aren't reselling most of the items they get. We had laws about false advertising in this country once...
Then what does the word return mean? Because the dictionary says nothing about reselling. Perhaps I should go watch Reselling of the Jedi. You know, he didn't just return, he resold.... what? it makes no sense.
Another reason for me to keep buying at thrift stores. Even if the item only lasts a year, it's still better for the planet than a "new" garment that only lasts 2 years.
And a lot of thrift stores are outright exploitive while over charging their merchandise. They use volunteers and low wage workers they claim to be a charity that contributes more to CEO salaries than their donations
As several already stated, everything you return doesn't end up in the trash. Even if it does happen. But the solution isn't to stop shopping online, we need better logistic solutions that take care of returns. You can't just take your measurements and think that is a solution, the problem is that companies have very different sizes. I can buy everything between L and XXL and it is differences even if it's the same brand. But less than between brands. That there should be better standards for sizes is one thing. Most brands have already adapted to online shopping. In the past the stores would bring in every sizes of an item. Today they might just get M and L and tell the rest to go to their website.
Most of the online stores I shop at give PRODUCT MEASUREMENTS for each size rather than giving a size chart. This is so much more useful. With that, I *can* compare my measurements to the chart and decide what size to buy based on how I want the item to fit (or realise that the way this particular item has been designed, there is no size of it that will look good on me). This means that I can order items from the same store and they will all be different sizes, but they will all fit me the way that I want. For instance, a size chart says my body is "1X" but if I look at the product measurements I quickly see that in a button-up blouse that I don't want to gap between button holes, I might need a 2X or 3X, and on the other hand, I might be better off with a sweater in size L or even size M because there is currently a trend to make sweaters so big you can fit a whole nother person in them, and some people really like that, but as I am already plus size, I'd rather not have clothes that make me look bigger than I already am.
As somebody who works for a UPS Store, we’ve literally turned into the Amazon return store. It’s over 75% of my daily duties. We try to tell customers that those returns go in the garbage. I really appreciate you doing a video about this. More people need to know how absolutely wasteful returns are. We advise people to try to resell the items so the items have a chance but we all know laziness trumps all & the dopamine hit of getting your money back so quickly with little to no work makes our attempts fruitless. None of my staff uses Amazon unless we know we’re going to keep it!!! Thanks Adam!!
And no one is more entitled and rude than the Amazon return customers, I had a lady a few weeks ago ask me to stay open 40 more minutes after close because she forgot one Amazon return 😭
@@Fragamitake Absolutely. People don’t read instructions then blame it on us. I can only apologize for the incompetence of both Amazon and their user base so much. I feel like things we actually do - and get paid for - like shipping and print are consistently put on the backburner and not given the appropriate amount of time and effort as we do to those Amazon consolidations. Now it’s even worse with Amazon defaulting to Whole Foods and other providers even when the customers choose The UPS Store (or so they state) and charging people for returning to TUPSS. Plus the things people return are downright stupid. Did you really need that 45c back for a sticker??!! But - sending support to you, my comrade. Next week is going to be return insanity.
The numbers break down like this - over 90% of all returns are trashed. 5% go to resell places. 4% (mostly electronics) go back into the cycle. Less than 1% are donated.
A lot of people need their money and they don't have the time to waste because doing what you say cost them time which means that also cost them money. Who's going to do that for an item that's like $10 bucks? Or even 20? My time is way more important I get paid more than 20 an hour. If it's broken too it won't sell. It's okay you don't actually need to single handlely save the world. Just do your job and let people decide on their own.
"the truth? you cant handle the truth". exactly how i feel lately about nearly everything. i learn the dirty little secrets behind all of this, and i just hate it all. i cant buy anything anymore, i cant eat anything anymore, i cant enjoy anything anymore, everything has been ruined, everything is corrupt. whats the point? gj tho Adam, gj John Stewart, gj John Oliver. you all do good work, things we need to know, i just feel terrible knowing it.
Yeah I don’t know how to live in this world anymore. I don’t fly I haven’t bought clothes in three years I don’t really go out anymore. I’m working on cutting out meat. Then I see asshats on the internet who seem completely oblivious to everything or worse, they don’t care. Jfc how can you not care. Is the world full of psychopaths? I just want out. I just want out so bad.
That’s why we need to focus on systemic change and community building, things need to change and while there’s no easy fix, we need to build community systems that exist seperate to these capitalist nightmares
@___.51 As one of those people, the thing is, I do care. But in our world right now, there aren't really alternatives, so I can care, I can hate everything about it... but I still have to do things -- go out, even something as simple as being clothed. Good example -- I'm disabled, and have chronic fatigue as one of those things. Options like Amazon are often necessary in getting me what I need. I can go for Walmart, but the things I need might not be there, and are they any better, etc.? I hate the way things are, I feel like crap for doing them, I do care... but I have to take part anyway, because something that will have bad outcomes is the only option in our world. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but I hope it does.
Started buying most of my clothes on eBay a few years ago and it was one of the best decisions I've made. It's like a thrift store where you can actually find what you want.
@@sunnohh yeah the prices are my biggest problem too, and the shipping. i don't mind buying used clothes, but i expect to pay used clothing prices. miss me with that "stained and threadbare sweater for $18 plus $15 shipping" shit. i will give you two dollars.
I'd love to buy everything I need at stores in my area, but often they don't carry things in the store. I'm told they can order it for me online. The only choice is to order and hope it fits/looks good/etc. I recently bought 8 pairs of shoes to keep 2 - could not find a local retailer of the brand within 200 miles. Stores are moving more and more to an online presence with limited local stock.
I spent a few months carefully thrifting my wardrobe and now I've a closet full of high quality clothes, and haven’t bought anything but socks and undergarments in over a year.
This is my goal. But online thrifting is such a scam. Similarly, they'll offer you a partial refund to KEEP what doesn't fit so you can throw it away instead.
One of the problems with the clothing industry is just how cheap the materials are these days. That doesn’t make the garment cheaper. I have clothing that I wore as a teenager that my own daughter enjoys wearing. Not that she is forced into wearing hand me downs, she just wants to. Unfortunately most of the garments I’ve purchased in the last decade are so cheaply made, that they either develop holes quickly, or come apart at the seams. No hand me downs if I can’t even get a year out if it. My daughters backpack didn’t even last the first day of school!!! I’ve offered to buy her a new one, but no, she wants THAT one, so every couple of weeks I’ll have to replace a zipper here or two, restitch seams, and so on.
I so agree. One washing and it is all pills and wrecked seams. They might as well make it out of tissue paper it is so flimsy and useless. Hand me downs for kids are a thing of the past, nothing lasts long enough. Yet another way the middle class is being nickel and dimed to death.
I used to obtain pallets of amazon returns and try to resell them. It actually wasn't the worst way to make money but yeah clothing was not even worth the effort and I ended up taking any clothing to goodwill.
I work at a retailer that processes Amazon returns and Adam’s set decor is giving me real anxiety 😂 Amazon is ~50% of the daily volume and they generate a TON of plastic waste and mess
Also a lot of the retailers that process the returns were not designed for the sheer volume of returned junk Amazon generates. Our space is cluttered and a legit tripping hazard
I’ve worked in a Amazon return warehouse. We actually have to open every box and examine the item. We stand in one place for 10 hours while everyone takes lunch at the exact same time. So yes people do open the boxes. Some is thrown away but most they try to resell if they can. Or send it back to the seller. Depending on what contract they have setup. But a lot of stuff just sits there until it’s decided what to do. Mostly they get trashed. Also Zappos is the brand they give the first pair of work shoes to workers.
@@douglasboyle6544 yeah in the hiring process they give you a voucher for a certain amount for shoes from zepo and i it didn’t cover the full amount you paid the rest and was mailed to your house.
yes Amazon employees, Delta, certain other airlines and workplaces are on a big list for the ZAW (Zappos at Work) program. it ends up as basically one pair of work shoes per year roughly, about 110 bucks worth of credit. Mgmt at your place should set everyone up soon as they start @@douglasboyle6544
11:38 I take accurate measurements and then return everything I bought because 1) the size chart provided was all lies, 2) the size chart was about the dimensions of the clothing, not the dimensions of the human wearing them, so everything is skin tight, or 3) the garment is meant for East Asian bodies, so while the width fits, everything is too short on my Germanic body. I did my due diligence, so it's the seller's fault for not providing accurate information to buyers.
This - Yesss!!! I’ve had to return so many clothes because despite doing my due diligence to find out what size is most likely to fit me {Ex: Excessively studying the size chart, measuring myself, looking @ how the item fits on the models shown, & looking @ all the reviews to see what people said about the fit} - they still didn’t fit!!! Either that or the item was shittily constructed or had a significant design flaw…………Polyester is also an issue for me - esp. for socks (because I’m sweaty) - but sometimes the material composition either isn’t listed on the site or it’s inaccurate.
I've had a similar experience, as, in "American" sizes I'm pretty much between medium & large, but far too often, if I buy clothes online it'll be too small, too short, or waaaaaay off, like someone sent me children's clothes... I've tried not to send them back if I know someone who can fit them, but c'mon man, it's not my job to fill someone else's wardrobe...😂
I am glad that I already basically do what you suggest to do mainly because I don't want to have to return anything cuz it's a hassle. I highly recommend to anyone to go to a sewing shop and get a sewing tape measure. It's a role of measuring tape that is flexible like cloth, and is designed to take body measurements. They are not that expensive and can save a lot of headache. Do get someone else to take your measurements if at all possible though.
I used to work for a waste disposal company and in 2019 they landed an Amazon contract. There was SO MUCH waste! Like I knew big business just trashed things but I never would have been able to realize the amount without seeing it. Returns, cancelled orders, expired and damaged product, everything goes to landfill. By the way, if any employee tried to take any of the perfectly fine merchandise you'd get fired immediately. So the amount of wastefulness is truly heartbreaking.
Then I don't understand why Amazon doesn't have a specific section for "Used or opened box" products sold at a discount & just add "no returns/sales final." Lots of other companies do that! Amazon regular retail products are known to be more expensive than other retail stores, so here they could keep customers from going elsewhere and not waste all those mostly unused items. It's Amazons policies that stink. Bezos hate his workers & environment.
@@andreah6379 if I remember right, I want to say I hear it has something to do with tax law. If they trash product it can be claimed as a loss or something like that. It's all a money game
The ability to go through returns and take them would be a huge benefit/perk to Amazon employees. They'd get and keep employees a lot more easily, saving money on staff turnover AND waste disposal. But Bezos could never do something nice for his employees, even if it saved him money.
This reminds me of why I'm proud of my daughter. She often buys second hand clothes. For a prom dress, she bought an antique dress online, some jewelry and accessories from antique store, spent easily less than $100, and got quite a number of compliments for how she looked. She could probably resell all that for what she paid.
That is smart. Similar story. My sister hated the grad (we didn’t have prom) dress options that were available so she rented a dress from Ren clothing company. She looked like a gothic queen and it was cheaper to do so. You can always rent special occasion clothing.
I came from a time where you got made fun of if you bought second hand clothes. Now it's cool to wear stuff that looks like you got it from your aunt/uncle's closet.
@@FDR_progressive_liberal "Antique" is always overpriced, that's why I only buy old things. If I hear employees in a thrift store say something is antique, I walk right out the front door.
As someone who doesn't know or care much about fashion and just rotates between like 10 different polos I bought 5 years ago, I'm disgusted that this is what so many other people are doing. The one goal of an "economy" is the efficient allocation of scarce resources; this is a spectacular fail.
This is so true, my daughter worked at Amazon in the return department. I was also manager of a salvation army thrift store. An you wouldn't believe the amount of brand new stuff people donate from high end stores, like Vera Wang, and Louie Vuitton. My daughter's loved it. I did just about all my Christmas shopping there lol
I'm an Amazon delivery driver and I deliver unwrapped items that have clearly been opened, taped shut, and returned with old address labels and all so this cannot be universal.
He's definitely exaggerating. Also, how often have you, as an Amazon delivery driver, had to pee into a bottle? Probably never, right? Yet, Adam still references that one time that happened in this video as if it still happens all the time or is even company policy!
I've definitely received items that were clearly previous returns. I even regularly buy "used, like new" items sold by Amazon warehouse, which are typically items that have been returned for whatever reasons...so clearly they don't trash ALL returns and do resell some.
@@satya_satoriyes and no. That's not Amazon. That's smaller resellers that buy pallets and go through the stuff and relist what they can. With that said... Supporting that system will cause it to hopefully grow and keep more stuff from the landfill.
This is crazy to me that ppl get rid of so much clothing. I’m 40 years old and I still have clothes I bought when I was literally 14. Are ppl really changing their wardrobe this frequently?!
They don't. No idea where Adam got his numbers but the entire planet doesn't even make as much clothing as the USA supposedly throws away. But people do get rid of a lot of clothing, and most of it ends up as bags of "unsorted rags" for use in industry. I worked at an oil refinery one summer that was a purchaser of said bags -- paper towels are useless for sopping up the kinds of spills we had but you wouldn't want to buy new towels for it either. So... People's discarded last season shirts were put to use.
Younger people sucked into fast fashion definitely are. Or they have to buy and buy and buy because so much is made of crappy materials and poorly made into the bargain. After all, it's profit for the company so there's no reason to change.
That and it gets most of the time cheaper made , and way less holding. Also its always nice to use decent rags as, rags to clean?! I also know sewing can do a lot. I also hope crafty cosplayer use a lot.
Built in obsolescence is also a factor. It's why you need to buy a new phone every 2 to 3 years because your battery burns out. And clothes are made to degrade faster so you have to run out and buy more.
@@Char00000 Yes but no. Today we can't make a battery that is able to keep the same charge forever. A modern lithium cell can be charged about 300-500 before losing noticable in power. The larger the battery, the less noticable it is. A phone with 69% battery health is in worse actual shape than say a Tesla with 69% battery health. The lifetime of a lithium cell depends on a whole bunch of factors but by simply the way lithium cells work, you can't really make them break down "early" unless you discharge them below safe voltage and/or charge them with too many amps.
So you've got one store, and you can return anything to it, but they somehow turn it into a form of collective punishment. America really is the most boring dystopia.
@@gatchpaints Amazon originates from America ya big weirdo so the problem clearly started there. But don't let facts and logic get into the way of your fragile ego who can't take criticism of you're own country. God forbid the USA take any responsibility for anything.
Nobody "here" where? LOL. talk about a sentence that says absolutely nothing. cuckooo. "nobody", yeah right. Absolutism is a sure fire way to say "I'm exaggerating and what I say is complete nonsense." The entire statement "yeah nobody here uses it, man" says nothing at all. nobody who? here where? uses what? half the words in your sentence need clarification. What has happened to our education system, @AdamaConover ?@@JemaKnight
We have a bunch of return Amazon stores in my town that buy lots of stuff from returned products to stuff that was gonna be thrown out. One guy bought a iPhone box thinking it was a phone case to find a working iPhone 12 in the case! Hopefully more return stores will start to come about as common
This is exactly why I only buy things online that I actually NEED, and it's typically more practical items (household goods, for instance). With clothes, buy them in store, I wear it until I can't, and then it goes straight to a donation center. This is absolutely insane. Thanks for covering this Adam!
@@lucydonohue4919 I don't gain or lose that much weight. And if I did lose weight, I could still wear my clothes. I don't care about fashion. Am I clean? Am I decent? Am I warm and dry? Am I protected from the elements in general? Am I protected at work? That's what I care about.
@johnchestnut5340 that makes total sense on a personal level, but I wasn't referring to you personally. I was responding to your question, "If you cannot where it, then who can?" The answer is some people's weight changes and so then they donate their still good clothes.
Adam missed the primary reason clothes cant be resold. In my experience, they hype up the supposed comfort of clothes, then more often than not deliver clothes made of the cheapest materials it does not even feel like fabric at all, more like it was woven from thin strands of plastic, which no one would ever buy if they felt the material with their own hands. And do not get me started on food items, Amazon sent me literal CRUSHED instant ramen cups, and would not allow a return because it is a food item, so I am now screwed with part of my food budget for the month.
Hi, certainly not trying to be a bother, but I had a food item that was incorrect recently and reached out to the seller via amazon. They refunded me and sent a replacement without asking for a return since it was food. I've sent emails directly to the amazon support team or left 1-star reviews and sometimes they will offer a refund if you do those extra steps. I know it can be demoralizing when it seems like it says no, but basically, I just keep hitting I have a 'different issue' other than a refund (like saying it didn't show up) until I get to a real person, it lets me send photos, or it just lets me refund it. If you've already tried these things or just don't have the energy I completely understand, I just wanted to help if possible since I've been there with really tight budgets before! When you're trying to just survive, it's okay to push back with whatever means you can. ❤ Either way I'm sorry this happened!
Feels like thin strands of plastic because it is. Polyester is EVERYWHERE in the clothing market, and good materials are hard to come by 🤦🏻♀️ Another reason I just don't buy clothes anymore. I hate it here
Amazon has started charging for returns depending on the return option you select. I noticed I was charged if I chose something like "I don't like it", compared to "Item is defective".
Counterpoint: I just returned a door handle, purchased for the main entrance of my parents' house. The Schlage box was in OK condition but was sealed with *Amazon* shipping tape (that branded paper tape with reinforcing fibers). It rattled a lot, and when opened contained an obviously used batch of door hardware, nothing wrapped, a couple of the little baggies for screws with holes in them, and several pieces missing entirely... obviously, a repacked USED item that had been sealed with brand-new Amazon shipping tape and sent to me. The replacement was an identical box that was tightly closed (no Amazon-branded tape), with all its contents wrapped to protect the surface & placed in cardboard holders to keep things from shifting around. That first box was definitely a "re-processed" return. Looks like at least a few things slip through the filters....
So when you buy shoes are the store, you think no one has ever tried them on before? You think they are trashing them after you try them on? What is the difference when Amazon does the same thing then?@
I've come to appreciate some aspects of having grown up with little money, one of which being that I was brought up to enjoy shopping in charity shops. My dad had a great eye for spotting quality clothes and known brands. I always have a donations bag ongoing in my home and once donated a brand new pair of boots that were too tight because my cats destroyed the box and I didnt want to deal with trying to get a refund, its a nice thought that someone might have found them and loved them as much as I'd hoped to
I would love to buy clothes in person. However, for people of odd sizes there are literally no other options except online. There used to be some stores around here that sold my size, but the Brick and Mortar stores all closed in 2020, and got bought up by a single online retailer. It's the only place to go. And it sucks, because I'm very picky about how fabric feels. And there is just no way to tell
It's for this reason that I am super picky about what I buy and use everything I get until it falls apart. The best thing to do is purchase stuff from the thrift store.
Thrift shopping and yard sailing are how I get my consumerist addiction tendencies tickled while also remaining in a decent budget. Best feeling in the world is getting a vintage piece of clothing that's in amazing condition.
You and me both. Thrifting is sustainable, cheaper, and completely bypasses the clothing companies causing this mess. There's also no other place to try on hundreds of different styles to find what works for you.
@@TonesBalones I don't know where you go thrifting, but I have trouble finding my size. Finding XS, XXL XXXL and such sizes isn't difficult, but M or L Mens', not to mention belts and other accessories. Perhaps you mean Yard Sales, which would likely have more popular sizes, but thrift stores -not where I live.
@@squirlmy My unconventional advice is to shop in the women's section. It works especially well for pants. As you probably know, men will hold onto clothes to the grave, so finding trendy clothing is difficult. If you are a men's M/L I would recommend a pant size 10/12, which are very common in women's, and there's way more variety in style. Fortunately for me I'm 5'8 so I'm short enough to pull that off. Other than that, just stick to finding outerwear like coats and blazers (men or women's), then putting them over your regular outfits.
I worked for a food bank that we got Amazon return boxes "donated" for a hefty cost. We ended up being outbid for those boxes. However, the amount of plastic generated was staggering...everything was individually wrapped in a plastic bag...for every 18 wheeler of return boxes at least a 1/4 of it was in excessive repackaging...
Wow, this makes me realize that stores like Nordstrom are the outlier. I worked for them for a bit and EVERY return (unless it was damaged or unclean or something like that) was put back on the floor, including online returns.
I suspect part of this is the high average price of each individual SKU that Nordstrom sells. It's a reasonably luxury store, so a single item refund could result in a greater overall profit loss if it were destroyed instead of attempting to sell again.
I'm an eBay seller who never offers free shipping or free returns. I do well, and sell lots of 2nd hand clothing, which is a growing market. I think people are beginning to wise up to the pricing and "recycling" scams.
It’s something that bothers me personally so much every year, and every year it gets harder and harder to avoid. My city’s one mall is almost completely gone and the stores that remain only sell their cheapest or most basic offerings in person. I used to go to local boutiques or shops instead, but inflation has hit our Main Street so damn hard this year. It feels like there’s no good option these days. I wind up driving to a city 2.5 hours away just to shop in person. It’s nuts.
Im really quite fond of my autism because it has dictated that I must wear the same outfit every day. I have multiple of the same outfit, I wear nothing else, I buy nothing else, and it will not be thrown away ever. Autism for the win, baybee.
I absolutely feel this. I buy multi-packs once I find something I can wear, and I rotate them when I do laundry so they will wear out at approximately the same time. Too much?
It's important to note that because of all this online shopping the in-person shopping experience is suffering. I can't go pick up a mall pretzel unless I drive an hour and a half because they're so deserted. The clothing inside is just odds and ends. It's dire inside them. Also for some reason the sizes are changing? It might just be women's clothing but I've went to an 14 to an 8. Same with shirts. And it's never consistent. I own a pair of 22s that fit me the same as my 6s.
Not just womens sizes. Mens shoes are different sizes based on the country of origin. When I buy Chinese sneakers they're size 19 but when I buy my American made boots they're size 15. Plus shirts are an issue. If it's made in Asia it's a 4xlt yet still not long enough. But if it's made in Mexico/ south America I usually get a 2xlt and it's the right size
I've ordered so much xs clothing that was huge on me. But it makes sense. The size of the average American woman is bigger. It's much more lucrative to change the sizing to reflect that than to expand what you manufacture and sell
Another aspect of the return myth is that a lot of people buy items based on the comfort of knowing it can be returned but then simply don't do it because it's too much of a hassle. Instead of Dick Rocket Man throwing things out, it's the customers themselves.
Exactly. People just forget to do it, don't think it's worth their time, any number of reasons, and the returns are harder now as they (AMZ at least) don't have free UPS pickup for most items, even when damaged. They keep a LOT of money off of this.
This is so true. I have missed many return windows because life got a little too busy or i simply forgot. Usually in that case I try to find a use for it.
This is me, right here. It's why I only buy on Amazon as a last resort. I do prefer to buy local, but sometimes what I want is not being sold locally.... and it is nice to know that if things don't work out, I have some hope of getting my money back if I can find the executive function... but more often I Just end up giving stuff away or donating. Not usually clothing, either.
@@roysteves I'm not sure it does, since Goodwill gets all of their products "donated," then pays people literally pennies to pick through it all, and gets to claim itself as a nonprofit charity while paying its executives millions. I don't think they're any better than the fast fashion mills overseas, but at least those retailers pay some corporate taxes.
That explains why all the charging cables I bought at Amazon fail to work more than a week. It’s terrible that resellers can just resell things on these sites.
This is just horrible to hear about. Here I am getting most of my clothes at the goodwill and just donating whatever I don't end up wearing, and there's people who return 40% of the stuff they buy online??
I felt so terrible when I learned how goodwill treats disabled people. They would put up all these pictures of happy looking disabled people working but not tell anyone they are paying them significantly less than minimum wage
Sizing within brands can often be wildly inconsistent. Also, as a plus size person my in store selection is almost nil. I do try to order from smaller brands, as those are often the ones that are the most size inclusive. Hopefully they try to resell gently handled returns.
You just admitted being fat is an issue. Do something about it. Then you don't have to order clothes like that. Always makes me mad when fat people complain about problems caused by being fat. Just make the effort and lose some weight.
Not just the size in general, but the fit in particular. It may be my size, but it doesn't fit well due to shoulder width / chest circumference etc. Because of online shopping, brick'n'mortar shops are closing more and more. So the problem is exacerbated: less choice offline and a higher chance you'll spend a lot of time without finding anything suitable.
I work at a warehouse that does fulfillments for online orders for an international clothing chain, and i can confirm that people do buy the same thing in 3-4 sizes and return all but one. Its ridiculous.
I do it all the time. Honestly, its not my fault either. Clothing quality sucks, sizing is never consistent even with in a brand, if you don't look like the model then you have no idea about the fall and fitting, images never do justice to the actual color etc. And isn't it all cheaper than opening up a store anyway? Hell, who has the time to go to a store anyway.
This is actually an example of a good and useful return policy, especially if your company actually checks the returned items and puts them on for sale again, I’m not sure what the point was, like sure people are returning a lot, but nothing seems to be going to waste, it creates extra jobs, and it lets people be sure which size really fits them
@@da4127 40% of all returns are classed as damaged. Company absorbs that cost and passes it on to, ahh... everyone. Did you watch the video at all? Even returns that aren't damaged require people to spend time assessing them for potential damage. It's hilarious how naive you are. Costs go up from this.
A big part of the problem is the quality of item. A lot of retailers and especially a lot of online retailers carry a lot of cheap poorly made generic stuff. A lot of people want the free returns because they're not sure that the product is going to be good when they get it.
5:36 Mad props to the editor. He didn't have to light your face and fingers for the light ray. But he did. Also, earlier, with the 2000s Adam shot, the tiny little knee flex before the jump made everything about the picture exiting the frame. Really great and subtle animation work. 😍
It's insane. I'm so happy you are helping to inform people about this terrible waste. It should be illegal. I'm also happy I have never purchased clothing online. I'd rather go to a store, and know immediately if something fits. However I suffer from severe depression and haven't had a life in years. So I don't leave the house much. The only thing I'v ever purchased online is car parts, and no returns.
But then, it's a privilege to just walk into a store and find clothes that fits you (I'm not overweight, I'm just super short and wear a large cup size, I can't change those things - and I'm already very lucky to have huge feet for my body height!). Of course, most people do this just for fun, not out of necessity.
Not a huge Amazon fan but for the sakeof accuracy...Lead an Amazon CRETs department. The process is to inspect every single return by opening the box and looking at it. The only thing not inspected is matresses because we can't resell them by law. Everything that passes the inspection is repackaged and an unique LPN is put onto it for reduced price resell through wharehouse deals. If it fails inspection it depends how baddly on what happens. It's either donated, liquidated, destroyed, or repaired. Most the failures are due to shit stains on the pants, food explosions in microwaves, open food, broken/defective parts, or something else along those lines. Underwear is even resold as long as the hygene strip is in tact and no staining is present. I'll admit we liquidated and distroyed more than we donated but a majority of units processed were put back on the shelves (Though not all buildings followed the correct standards so could have been different at other locations but for our building at least a majority of units were captured for discounted resale). Pee bottles were delivery drivers only, not FC workers (except for the ones that do it intentionally just to be assholes..). Agree with the other points though, none of it is ACTUALLY free.
This is wild. I go to JC Penny like twice a year and do my clothes shopping. I try everything on. My wife just buys shit online all the time. She has so many clothes that when they're all clean we don't have enough hangers to put them in the closet. I'm constantly asking her "does this still fit, do you still want this?" I thought she was nuts for shopping this way. I had no clue she was the normal one.
I’d argue it’s the word free that gets people drunk on “savings”. I work as a mechanic and when a customer is wavering on a repair I’ll tell them that I’m gonna throw in an extra repair for free and it always gets them to agree to everything. Little do they know I was gonna do that repair for free anyways without telling them cause it’s so quick and easy. It’s just so easy to sell people things when you can subtly convince them that they are “saving” money in one way or another.
I never knew there was this much clothing waste. Ive always got my clothes from walmart or goodwill, I could never fathom getting clothes online. Im so used to trying my clothes on in the store. And I only get new clothes every couple years when my clothes fall apart or dont fit anymore. Clothes are so expensive lol I wish I had the kind of money to be able to get them whenever I wanted. This is depressing news to learn about
That overpriced stuff is often cheaply made because of fast fashion. Things that will last are also expensive. When I was a kid, parents sewed clothes to save money. Now? Good luck finding a fabric store. Now you get your sewing supplies at craft stores, Walmart, Target, or online. And given what we've just discovered, might as well keep the stuff even if it's wrong and make some use of it.
Speaking as someone who visits thrift shops frequently, you'd be shocked by the gems you can find. I recently found myself an Indochino blazer for $10 at a Goodwill, and this thing retails for $400+ online. Plus it fits me fairly well for something I just found on accident!
Interstingly enough, I personally know several Amazon employees who work the returns. They have literally thrown 14k gold and sterling silver jewelry in the garbage because "it's cheaper than repackaging and reselling" according to management. And those very employees will get instantly fired if they try to take the "trash" home with them, because it's "stealing." Make it make sense.
It's also "stealing" to get food out of the dumpster at a grocery store or restaurant.
"fuck the poor and the planet they live on" makes it make sense, really
My dad works in a food processing plant and they blend Gatorade. If they drop a few tens of grams of the formula they must throw it away because the entire batch is considered ruined.
People there just swipe the formula and make it at home because you only need to mix in water and sugar, if you want sugar.
I can't make it make sense, because it doesn't make sense.
@@backlogbuddieswhut?
I've never bought clothes online and then returned them.
I grew up dirt poor so my mentality is wear everything until it falls apart, sew it, and wear it until it disintegrates. I couldn't fathom the idea of throwing away perfectly good clothes.
Me too. What makes me mad is how quickly modern clothes and shoes disintegrate! I’d like to get more than one year out of the dang things!
@@evilsharkey8954 A year of constant wear is actually pretty good. If you want clothes that last longer, you can get work clothes and wear them casually.
@@evilsharkey8954Eh, depends on where theybreak apart. Have at least two parts of shoes that are semibroken, but they do as shoes, so, oh well.
If I find a brand that makes higher quality and longer lasting clothes I will pay double or more for it. I don’t want to buy new clothes every few months. That’s stupid.
In civic education classes (it was a small bit for 2 years in middle school) you learn about all of these facts retail, recycling, waste, YET, because is not a class with grades children get to be a$sh°les about it. The most display of cruelty was there , yet they are the same ppl that later would pretend they should have learned this stuff in school. Just because a class isn't interesting it might as well not have happened
I don't always realize the poverty I live in until I hear things like "the average American throws out 100lbs of clothes a year"
I'm in my 30s and still have a few shirts from middle school. I a better place now than then, but I cannot justify buying that many clothes. I bought one pair of jeans this year because one of mine tore.
What how!!!!
That's like 2x all the clothes.
@@tlgmc1908lol fellow man spotted
@tlgmac
I'm still wearing the rockband 2 preorder shirt i got for free because my friend's job was going to throw them away.
The average American includes all the companies that throw all the clothes out every time the season changes
I appreciate the few retailers who are honest enough to tell me "we'll refund you, but don't return it, just donate it or regift it instead...we don't have the manpower or warehouse space to handle it."
Which retailers are these?
Absolutely cowardly to not tell us the names of those retailers
I work for a company that actually processes and resells returns and we get an absolute ton of hate from customers for it. Everything has to be manually inspected which means it takes time for customers to see the refund at their bank. People return counterfeits in place of the originals, dirty, used, or broken stuff then complain when they don't get their money back. It's a tough problem to handle.
I think thats why Amazon usually junks the stuff, its not worth the pissed off customers taking their anger out on Amazon and to be fair they are paying for “new” not slightly new.. The high end brands burn their stuff to keep supply low and value high, even with brand new “out of season” things
I've had this happen as a small-time eBay seller. I can only imagine how much fraudulent stuff gets returned on Amazon.
I’m sure I read somewhere that there was a scam where some teens were “selling” stuff on their website, once someone bought something, they would buy it off Amazon, send it to the customer, and then return the package with trash inside to Amazon and get a full refund. Amazon’s return system is so shit that they managed to run this operation for years and “scam” Amazon for millions of dollars
Seems like people like that are to lucrative to get banned
I've also seen people get mad about shipping costs. Like, sorry not all companies pay slave wages, gouge independent sellers, and destroy the environment to undercharge you for shipping so you no longer know what the true cost is.
I’m a UPS employee and deal primarily with Amazon Returns. Thank you so much for covering this!!
I did part time work at a UPS store around the time "Free returns" really became a thing. Our package output at the store practically tripled from just Amazon returns. Eventually Amazon rolled out it's "No Box, No Label" return system where people could just bring their items in, get a barcode scanned and leave it with us. We'd just dump the items in an 18" cubed box until full, then ship the box to a return facility. It didn't matter what the items were, we just bagged em up and fit them in the box. None of it went back to Amazon itself and I'm sure most of it ended up in the trash.
We'd be shipping out at least three of those a day by the time I left.
@@ziero01 As someone that still works there. The system has gotten even worse, we have to use polybags for everything and we have to pay out of pocket for polybags, corp doesn't provide them or add additional revenue to cover the cost. Even worse, they want us to only use the branded ups boxes for amazon and those boxes cost way more than using a non-branded 18 cube of the same quality from another vendor. Now they even have "customer" packed codes but people don't read them and get upset if they threw out the original packaging, they want us to use our material to pack their return for free despite the instructions making it CLEAR that if they want packaging, they have to pay for it since amazon doesn't reimburse us at all.
Now they added Happy returns, using the same polybags despite people bringing in the original bags, it's so wasteful. And we can't use anything but the polybags otherwise they'll take our monthly compensation for doing said work. And the compensation ain't much to begin with, only $5.20 per 18 cube box and each box can have to 10-40 items in it!
Sounds like job security.
@@gatchpaintsi wonder if he's complaining or thanking amazon 🤔
I was recently at the UPS store to send back some faulty IT server hardware to the company we pay support for and like of the 20 people also there, probably 18 of them all held amazon crap. So I can believe it when you say its all amazon returns... its insane.
Actually, I work in a customer return Amazon facility. We do actually take each item through a grading process. Some items go to sellable, some go back to the vendor, donations, liquidate and destroy. The only items that go to destroy are items we cannot return due to not being able to add the item into our system, or the item posing a risk to health (bugs, mold, glass, bodily fluids ect...)
It's not a fun job, but it has to be done
Adam and many other people online will often hear about some bad thing that happened related to Amazon and then just RUN with it and assume that THAT is how it ALWAYS is, when they are actually just outliers. It's really annoying! I work for Amazon (in a sorting facility) and HATE working here, but all other companies I have ever worked for (which is a LOT) are worse in almost every way. If you are going to criticize Amazon you should do it right and not exaggerate!
Yea this is way over the top. It’s not entirely false, but way exaggerated. I buy stuff from Amazon Warehouse all the time. Not to mention I’ve received clearly used items (sold as new). And I know people that make their living selling used clothes online.
I think a bigger problem is the scammers, and mistakes. In other words people who abuse the system, as well as straight up thieves. And people getting the wrong thing/wrong size thing, etc. Giving them no choice but to send it back. ✌️
Right. I work for a large Amazon reseller. We also go through EVERY item to see what can be repacked and sold as new or what can be sold on Ebay (or wherever) as used. That said - some items can't be resold and are destroyed by Amazon.
Lets assume though Amazon did actually just throw everything away that gets returned.
They have every right to, the items are theres again. Amazon can do whatever they want with them.
@@moverton500 Are you alright? WTF does that have to do with what we’re talking about here? We’re still paying for it either way. And it’s still filling up landfills either way. So your point is completely, and utterly irrelevant. Not to be rude, but geez, think. Before typing. Not after. ✌️
The annoying thing is so many brick and mortar stores seem to have vanished or reduced their stock in response to the surge in online shopping. I often drive around looking for local places that have the things I need and end up not being able to find it.
We really were better off with brick & mortar
Yes✅ which is why I’ve had to order so many items online - because stores near me don’t carry them in store (or they’re out of stock!). & For clothing - Even w/ big chain stores (Ex. Target) - Often - times if I find something I like in-store, I have no choice but to order it online if I want it - because they don’t have it in my size! All my bras I have to order online because….. stores you can shop @ in-person for them & that don’t charge over $300 per bra - rarely carry them in my size!!!!
{**At least for bras that aren’t ugly af & will be supportive enough**}
Or, you can to go to the next worst evil on the list . . . Walmart. Which usually has something _close enough_ to do the job, but cheaply made, so it's not going to last.
@@dindindundun8211 We weren't, though. Brick and mortar dictated the selection of garbage products we had to choose from. Profitability over quality. With online shopping, we have a lot more ability to sidestep that. For me, it's hard enough to find shoes that fit me online. It's essentially hopeless at a store.
Knowing your measurements is only useful if the item they send you actually matches what it says when you buy it. There could be manufacturing error, inventory error, careless retrieval of that inventory, or they might just take the measurement as a "suggestion." So then you're stuck returning the thing anyway.
yup, and their size guides sometimes are just misleading and off.
A couple of months ago I bought 3 button-up shirts, all from the same manufacturer and listed as the same size on the store website. Even though the manufacturer provided precise measurements for the sizes, the store just binned them into T-shirt size categories, so each of the shirts I received was a different manufacturer size. As a result only one of them actually fit, which was a shame because I actually wanted all 3, and the only way to get them in a correct size would be to order multiples of each in the same size and hope that the store worker would randomly pick at least one of each in the size I wanted from the 3XL bin.
It would be pretty nice if local tailors were a common thing. If you had a tear in your favorite pants or you needed something sown or adjusted, you could provide a job to someone that saves you time or money. But retail rent spaces are too high for most small businesses to not charge a lot for their time. And the fashion industry built on third-world labor makes new clothing for lower than the cost of repairs.
This!!! The amt of times I have ordered clothing items that were the exactly the same except for color/pattern & some of them didn’t fit. Also often times the actual measurements of the clothes vs their size charts/guides online are vastly different from each other. You often have to hope a reviewer who looks to have similar body measurements as you posted a picture of them wearing the item & noted what size they ordered (often-times they don’t) - & even then it could be way off.
Also sometimes the material composition of the item isn’t listed - or it’s inaccurate - so you won’t actually even know till you receive the item. {This is especially an issue when it comes to socks/athletic wear/outer-wear}
I'll never understand why people throw out perfectly good clothing. I don't think I've ever thrown clothes out unless I've outgrown it or used it to the point that it's falling apart.
Edit: I did donate clothes when I outgrew them. Thrown out was a pour choice of phrase on my part.
Charities that accept clothing donations also tend to throw out anything that's been used at all or even just doesn't have a sales tag still attached. I was one of the poor bastards offloading the donation collection bins which is a nightmare in itself, back at the charity they'd be throwing out a dumpster or more worth of clothing alone every day. It's disgusting.
Shoes I do throw away when they're past their lifecycle but shirts etc I usually just use as rags when I have a water spill or painting sh*t or some other messy jobs..
If I didn't throw away clothes i'd be wearing the same shirt for 20 years. Which is fine, But I don't want to wear the same shirt for 20 years.
I don't know why that's disgusting.we have an excess.
@@CalvinHikes i have a few shirts and pull over that have been wearing for over 20 years now. Nothing wrong with them.
I KNEW that being too lazy to return things I didn’t end up liking and giving them to friends and family instead would pay off someday!
They probably threw it or gave it to someone else and then threw it.
@@popdogfool Okay? But if I had returned it then fs it’d get thrown away; at least giving it to someone ik there’s a higher chance it’d get used. And most of what I give away is clothing, and I make sure before giving it that it would fit the person I’m giving it to and I consider if they’d even like it in the first place, I don’t hand over just random junk💀 even if they toss it (which most ppl don’t do w clothes, they just give it away again), that’s their business and more importantly, I at least tried to give the thing another home and didn’t toss it🤷🏻
@@kawaiiskeleton297 Idk, but you couldve returned it, got back the money and could've done more with that instead?
@@popdogfool sure, I def could have, but as I said in my original comment I’m lazy, but I also work full time, and don’t feel like going out of my way to pack up my order and going to the post office or a store w an Amazon drop-off to send it back (if I bought it from Amazon). Even tho packages can be sent back by just leaving it in ur mailbox, that’s only if it will fit. If it’s clothing, it’s usually sent in a kind of plastic bag which can’t rlly be reused once you open it (unless ur rlly careful not to rip it too much but that’s usually almost impossible), or sometimes it’s even put in a box that’s too large to fit in my mailbox and dropped at my door, so trying to forgo taking it to a shipping center is difficult unless you buy new packaging that can fit in ur mailbox, which is just annoying, idc if it’s not expensive, it’s creating more waste anyway. Bottom line, it’s just a hassle and the money I spent can be earned again. I don’t lose sleep over it bc I usually buy inexpensive clothes, or if it is pricey I make sure it’s worth it by reading reviews and the sizing chart if there’s one (I avoid buying it if there’s not). I’ve requested refunds tho in cases where I never got my package in the first place. But idgaf abt my $20 button up that came in the wrong color, I’ll just give it to my gram
@@kawaiiskeleton297 I'm guessing you live in an area where you have to drive to do anything?
I can just take a 5 mins walk to post stuff.
I guess I understand then.
As someone who works in a post office we get probably 70-80 of these every day on a normal day and during Christmas seasons, we get them in the hundreds. It's basically just mass littering disguised as a real process when you bring it to us.
I've also heard the same about postal employees.
As a postal worker I can confirm.
But what about those Amazon returns boxes
the post office is a valuable service for americans. @@JM-yx1lm
And sometimes, they don't want us to return them the stuff we don't like. They'll just say, keep them. We'll still refund you.
I love it when companies do this! The downside for the company, though, is the gamble of people expecting to keep their disliked item. Waste more time and resources by demanding the product be returned, or create an expectation of free stuff by always saying “keep the item.” It’s a lose-lose.
Which is only a common practice because it's literally more profitable than paying for shipping and burning labor. Awful.
The only problem is if they do it too much then everyone will start returning for free money
@@racool911 I'm pretty sure they can see when people making more money than they do and stopped it when the pattern suggests they're gaming the system.
I don't return shit. I have clothes from when I was fucking 16 that I still wear. The shirt I'm wearing now was hand-me-down. I get far more compliments on my old thrifted clothes than any new clothes I've ever bought. It's insane to me that people return this stuff or throw it away. I even reuse my tattered clothes as bedding, hammocks, and little beds for my small animals. At least then the shit I can wear is being repurposed for something else before it's finally too torn and tattered to use anymore. In my house, we reuse just about everything. Parents need to be teaching their kids how to save money and reuse or fix older things vs just throwing them out or getting rid of them via returning. You're failing your kids teaching them otherwise and I'm judging you hard as fuck without a care in the world if you're teaching them piss poor lessons. I mean, jesus fucking christ people. Get it together. Learn how to sew and fix your damn clothes. Learn some basic skills that you can use and pass down to recycle your stuff/find other uses for your stuff/kids stuff. I've thrown out zero of our daughters clothes and made her blankets (lovies) instead. Her toys are thrifted toys that we've fixed and cleaned up that she's loved and given new life to. Hell, my garden was literally made from old food scraps that happened to sprout or enriched the soil. You don't have to be the person buying all their clothes from thrift stores or reusing every little thing. However, at least taking the time to stop yourself from impulse buying or finding a use/way to fix an item bought online vs returning it or throwing it in the trash is a very small thing anyone can do. There is no need to buy everything online only to return everything you've bought and it's an utter shame (and detriment) that this is the norm now.
i work at Amazon processing returns. Its a 5 hr shift with about 30 to 40 people. Each shift we process between 4k to 5k returns. They expect around 80% of returns to be resellable. If you ever get an item in a clear polybag with green lettering, you know that item has been bought and returned, maybe even more than once
The main items I buy from Amazon now. Plus they come with 15 months warranty, when I buy with the Prime card.
So the guy in this video, and the articles he read and puked back out at us, but didn't fact check, is full of sh*t.
@@jasonj5862I understand the returns are occasionally restocked, the question is how many are sent back to facility vs those which aren't. Some sellers have restocking fees for this reason. Someone has to open the return, repackage whatever requires it, then get it logged back into inventory.
Also notice how this video revolves around clothing specifically. I haven't heard much on products like automotive OEM or aftermarket, home decor, or most electronics in the video.
Turbo kits, toasters and TVs are more likely to be returned and bought again as opposed to a pair of shoes or a shirt or crop-top.
Apologies for the ADHD essay...😅
@@jasonj5862 Yes. All while bashing capitalism like a brain dead college grad, but deep into his 30's and still rocking Blink 182.
0:08 well if i ask the girl friend her sise she would get mad and be a bitch.
I work at an Amazon returns only warehouse. I can confirm we put a HUGE amount of returns in the "donation" or "destroy" sections. But the vast majority it there because the vendor didn't want it back, or it is returned in TERRIBLE condition and is unsellable.
Additionally it is actually less expensive to destroy alot of it than it is to store it and later resell it.
But the returns ARE free for you. Amazon gives your money back on pretty much anything and does it immediately.
Unfortunately in many cases if the vendor is selling through amazon, they often take the hit on the loss when the product is damaged because Amazon gives them their money back but the product is returned to the supplier in a damaged state where they can no longer use it even though they are out the money for a product that is unsellable.
I disagree with your statement on Amazon. I am a dumpster diver in a town near me. There is a Amazon return mail place I will call it.
In there dumpster I fine over 100+ return boxes i fine unopened in there dumpster say out of them 5 boxes are junk, the other 95 are new unused items that I resell for half of the price they sold for.
Lol. Good for you. And where do you sell? Maybe I'll try to buy from that platform.@@mikeahl5123
They are not free for anyone that buys stuff anywhere. You obviously don’t understand economics at all. We all pay for everything that costs companies money. Like shoplifting as another example.
Companies set a margin they want to meet. And they meet it almost every time, because any thing that gets in the way of that is just added to the prices we pay.
And prices don’t rise in a bubble. If Amazon, Walmart, or Best Buy for instance. Raise their prices. The others follow along. And they call it inflation, blame it on rising costs, or whatever sounds good ATM.
We live in an economic “system” where everything is related. So even though you didn’t pay for that return at the time. We all, including you, pay for it in the end. So no they are not free. Unfortunately. ✌️
As someone who is guilty of frequently returning items, I needed to hear this right now. Seriously, thank you.
Be like me, too lazy to return anything
Take prices into account, please.
Natural resource and labor are factored in the prices.
You may think that buying used or repairing is more moral and less wasteful, but this is not ALWAYS the case.
Think of the ease of automation in making a modern complex CPU for example and the difficulty (almost impossibility) of repairing it.
Repair is often more difficult to automate in mass (repair is not always the same, many things can go wrong, it needs troubleshooting to find out the reason, which requires cognition).
Think of the man-hours and CO2 emissions it would take compared to making a new one!
The free market is efficient!
IF the price of buying new is cheaper than repair, THEN buy new.
IF the price of buying used (or organic/environmentally friendly or whatever is the current fad etc.) is less expensive, THEN buy that.
Consider the paper vs plastic straws... Plastic straws are easier to make, they use less resources, less energy. Much less in fact.
Paper straws are bad for the environment and bad for the consumers.
Do not let any corporation fool you into buying more expensive, less effective products for so-called moral reasons.
They are bullshitting you to make you pay more or pay for lesser products!
They use fear and guilt to prevent you from thinking.
Same! The wakeup call I needed. I was going to return a GAP sweater that's too big even though it's my normal size but now I think I'm just gonna try to shrink it in the wash... 🤞
Don't worry you will forget about this video by the time you go to bed
@@HANU8no, the price of a $2 sweater/gadget does not account for the cost of making the sweater anymore.
Not when companies like T*** are charging extremely low prices as they try to overtake markets.
Or if that’s really how much a person was charged, that’s inhumane.
I work for Whole Foods and I spend WAY too much of my time processing returns for people who ( true story ) bought THIRTY FIVE ties to see which one he liked best . I despise the entitled waste-based culture Amazon has forced on us all .
Whole Foods sells ties? Learn something new every day.
@@thecuriousboardgamerWhole Foods accepts Amazon returns.
@@MASON92J Ahh, that makes sense. Didn't know that. Thanks!
Did you throw away the ties?
@@robgronotte1no. Adam is exaggerating everything for a video. Items are sorted. Then resold for full price, a discount, or discarded for bulk sale or trash. It depends. It’s not an automatic trash. And ime only about 5% goes to trash
One change that would greatly reduce clothing waste is to standardize on sizing. When you buy a medium size shirt online, you really don't know if it will fit until you receive it. That's why people buy multiple sizes and return the sizes that didn't fit.
Thank you, I wish I could like this comment several times. Amazon does try and they let you vote on whether the item was true to size for others who may want to buy that item, but since there is no standard it's still kind of a hope and a prayer.
That mostly comes down to the weight of the item since every order gets weighed before being shipped and clothing items are one of the top things that fail to get shipped because of a weight discrepancy
True that, but that’s the fault of the fashion industry
the problem is mostly women's size's . men is easy to figure out size . women have many different shapes on the torso. big but small but big breast small breast etc.
@@ronblack7870 Doesn't really matter. Standardizing sizing (and quality control) would still eliminate a large number of returns. I wear a M in a unisex (men's) t-shirt, but in a women's shirt I could wear anything from a L to an XXL. And it varies from brand to brand. That unisex tee? I wear a medium regardless if it's Hanes, Jerzees, Fruit of the Loom, or Bella Canvas. That women's shirt; I could wear an XL in a red shirt and a XXL in the exact same shirt in blue made by the same company.
I have legit started thinking about making my own clothes. A couple months ago I fully hand-sewed a 19th century regency shirt and it was both so relaxing to sew and then so nice to wear as a thing that I made for myself that fit me... And though it costed around €25 for a single shirt, I know it's going to last a damn long because it's linen and the stitches are so tight and well done (even as a starter) that it will take a LOT for it to break or deteriorate beyond repair. And the best thing is that with the remaining scraps I can even alter it and add more fabric if needed if I ever change size...
Now I'm seriously considering doing the same with a pair of trousers. Maybe some nice black jeans?
Sewing is the gift that keeps on giving. As is knowing how to knit and crochet.
I always say I learned how to sew as an act of self-defence. Even back in the days when I was painfully thin, my hips were one and a half size wider than my waist. I couldn’t find a pair of pants to fit me correctly. So I learned how to sew. It meant I could alter my clothes to fit me. Or I could sew my own from fabric I bought, thrifted or that was donated to me.
My mother and grandmother taught me how to sew, knit and crochet. My clothes fit me better, last longer and I take care of them better because it took effort to make them or alter them to my liking. I choose more carefully, because it takes time and effort, I don’t want to waste all that and think “Nah!” or have it languish in my closet. I’m able to dupe really expensive designer items for very little money.
It’s addictive though, and soon you find yourself with a stash of fabrics, yarns, buttons, etc. But if you’re selective in what you allow to enter into your house, it’s definitely worth the time and effort, and it can save you A LOT of money. It’s better dor the environment because you will tend to re-use, repair and alter rather than throwing out things you don’t want to wear anymore.
I also find it comes in handy for gifts. Ripped a cotton shirt? Use the fabric along with some other cotton fabric from an old piece of clothing, add some batting and you’ve got some pot holders for Christmas for Cousin Alice who loves to cook and bake. Two or three pairs of old jeans and you’ve got plenty for a beach bag for Auntie May, whom you need pliers to pry her off the beach as soon as temperatures rise… and it’s got a handy pocket for that suntan lotion she always brings and never uses. Learned to knit? Socks for Uncle Frank who’s always got cold feet (you’ve ripped apart that sweater that was too small because… well… chocolate. And bacon). While you’re at it, here’s a beanie for the twins Little Frank and Big Mike who are addicted to hiking, even at sub zero temperatures. Learned to crochet? Cousin Frieda is a goth and there.s that lovely pattern for a shawl with little skulls on it. You found some perfect crocheting cotton at the thrift store and it’s enough for the shawl, it cost you only two dollars and fifty cents. And time. But instead of zonking out of the TV you’re putting on a podcast or an audiobook and making presents… the only thing that can happen is that you started on that skull shawl back in September, and by Christmas Cousin Frieda has decided she’s not a goth anymore. She’s a vegan, shaved her head (make an extra beanie) and only wears white. Good thing that sweater you ripped apart was white. Either rip apart the skull shawl, or gift it to another angsty teenager … or use it for Halloween and go as Morticia Addams.
Thing is, gifted items that have been lovingly made will often be well received and a lot cheaper than store bought. At worst, they cost the same because you can thrift or re-use a lot of things once you get going.
You can also learn how to mend things, it doesn’t need to be invisible. When my daughter was small, I had an extremely tight budget and she had a talent for ripping her pants at the knees. I’ve lost count of the patches I’ve sewed onto them. The fabric for those patches was always from old clothing. Hearts, squares, rectangles, triangles in contrasting colours, with a bot of embroidery added to make it look like the patch was a decoration that was put there on purpose. Ass some of the same fabric at the top of the pockets and/or on the cuffs and the illusion is complete. Embroider a few flowers here and there to cover up a stain that won’t wash out. For 1 USD of embroidery thread that dress that had become unwearable was saved. For some time and a few bits of an old shirt and those pants would last until she grew out of them… or ripped a new hole in them (another patch! Yay!).
I’ve also discovered my daughter respects the things I make more than the things I simply buy for her. She’s an adult now but in her early teens I’ve heard her tell off her friends because they were goofing off with a hat and scarf I’d made for her. “Hey, it took my mother two weeks to make those! It’s not like I can just go out and buy a new one!”
Also: discover the value of fabric dye. If a tub of dye costs less than an item of clothing that can be dyed and has a permanent stain on it, consider dyeing it in a dark colour that will cover the stain. Rather than throwing out the garment, dye it. The garment won’t head for the landfill and you’ll save money because you don’t need to replace it. Instead, you’ll simply have a ‘new’ garment in a different colour.
If you’re considering making more of your own wardrobe, I’d say heck yes, go for it. If you can, see if you can find a good second hand (or new) sewing machine. Learn more about sewing by hand. Learn about fabric quality and see if knitting and crochet appeal to you. Learn how to make a garment last and stay beautiful with the right care. Learn about visible mending (a blessing and with some truly beautiful results that can be quite chic). Strike up a few conversations with the elderly and see what they can teach you. Trawl UA-cam for tutoring. Learn about stash busting projects as well because you will need them over time.
What for me did come out of bitter necessity, has grown into a useful hobby now that I’m much better off financially. It’s still frugal, but not a need anymore. It’s an enjoyable choice. My wardrobe doesn’t entirely consist of things I made myself but a lot of it is at least altered, and if it gets damaged most of the time I can either save it, or re-use it in something else. Unless it’s so worn it falls apart completely. Some items are over thirty years old because they’ve been reworked several times and no one would know. The items I do buy are quality pieces, either bought new or thrifted. I can afford them because I don’t need to buy clothing often and buying quality means it lasts longer and is more easily ‘recyclable’ back into my wardrobe (or my daughter’s) in another form. All because I learned how to sew out of necessity.
Sorry for the looooong reply. I just thought it might be helpful for you as you’re debating whether you should sew more. My vote would be firmly ensconced in the “yes” camp.
Happy sewing!
Ps: hopefully not too many typos! My eyes are tired and I’m too lazy to get up for my glasses.
Lots of luck fitting a zipper!
I like what adam said at the end of the video about not blaming the consumer but still showing the power consumers have. Blaming it on the consumer is exactly what big corporations like amazon want us to do because it shifts the blame from them.
Amazon offers a service and if the consumer finds it worth their money they will use it. Amazon destroyed eBay and most other retailers with their business model. Consumers decided it worked better else Amazon would have to change it to survive. It is 100% on the consumer.
@@joecoolioness6399lmao not how that works at all
Yep, awareness can do a lot choices that might alone be not much, but if many do it and it might affect somewhat the profit.
If amazon is only used when nessesary and not returned, a lot doing it makes a difference, probably, if not that visible.
What do you want him to say? Start a revolution so that every 50 years we can vote on the system we want, giving the people real democracy and making systems better by introducing competition in the structure? Divorce political and economic power by requiring politicians to be in politics for life and never work for private corporations? That's the kind of deep change we need but very few people will dare go there
@@EdithEsquivel TLDR: You can't look at things with an eye to "fix" capitalism or the existing political system. A revolution that seeks to do either will only end up perpetuating them and backsliding towards the old status quo. Because that's what those systems incentivize based on how they function and are structured. If you want deep change you need to go away from a republican model of government and a capitalist model of economics entirely. Keep the social mode of production, but throw out the top-down structure entirely. Democratize everything so that you don't have to make all kinds of rules every time a new way for politicians and capitalists to game the system crops up, in part because it's the politicians themselves who would be making the rules with the guidance of the capitalists.
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That kind of change wouldn't fundamentally change anything. You can't divorce political and economic power. That's just something people are taught to believe you can do...by capitalists, because "it's not real/pure/true capitalism if government is involved." Politicians WILL be heavily influenced by private corporations whether you like it or not, and they'll be MORE influenced by corporations and individuals than the people they are supposed to represent. Because that's how systems like that (republics, whether capitalist or statist) are designed; the more money and power you have the more access you have to the people making decisions, the less you have the less access you get, and it's far more likely that a politician will listen to the few who have good access than the disorganized masses who don't have any kind of coherent message. You're basically suggesting a statist model mixed with capitalism, which is that the state controls everything while somehow not controlling anything, and "competition" makes sure that prices are manageable and goods are quality.
Part of competition is in wages. In order to compete a business needs to make money, and in order to make money it needs to cut costs. Labor is one of the biggest and first costs to get cut. It's certainly the most consistently cut cost. That's how capitalism functions in the imperial core. A LOT of labor is outsourced to poorer countries where people will work for pennies out of desperation. If everything was made in the imperial core then wages would be even lower than they are. If everything was made in the imperial core AND wages were livable then prices would be much higher, leading to people buying cheaper goods from the periphery so that they could save some money and get ahead.
Every time people try to "fix" capitalism there are certain things that go un-addressed and end up undermining their efforts. The social democracies of Europe are backsliding with austerity because they maintained the capitalist system, and the incentive of capitalism is to make more profits no matter the cost to society.
Voting every 50 years wouldn't change anything. Democracy isn't just voting; voting is nothing more than tallying support for one thing or another without actually getting the people voting involved in coming up with the ideas themselves. Democracy is being part of the whole decision-making process, because it means "rule of the people," not "let the people decide to accept which of the few will rule." That's something that capitalism is massively threatened by. Competition won't actually improve the system, but hamstring it by making it more likely to revert to standard capitalism. If you want deep change you can't cling to the things that were part of the problem in the first place. If you want deep change you need a cooperative economy, not a competitive one, and it needs to be democratically designed (meaning that everyone participates) and tweaked instead of made by "some smart person" for everyone else to vote on.
9:52 Having worked at Fedex/Kinkos, I've experienced that jump of 30%+ in returns firsthand, but lemme tell a quick story: at our store, we didn't have recycling pickups. So ALL cardboard went straight to the trash. But customers returning crap would always say "Hey could you recycle this?" as a way of pawning off their old boxes on us to throw away for them. Well, eventually I got sick of implying the lie that we recycle and started bluntly telling them "No we don't recycle here but I can throw it in the trash for you." And hooooo boy let me tell you, this made a lot of customers mad, but NOT mad enough to still pawn off their boxes to us. They didn't resent that we don't recycle, they resented that I made them face the fact that they actually - deep down - didn't give a shit about recycling, they just wanted to get rid of the box and not think about it any more, and by being blunt, I was ruining their little fiction. Only about 1 in 10 ever responded by saying "Oh never mind then, I'll recycle it myself". The rest just got salty and gave the box to me anyway. Very much enjoyed doing that.
Good for you. The next best thing is to find the closest transfer station or dump that does recycle and tell them to go there. 😂
Yeah, you can put it in the recycle bin and when the city picks up the recycle bin, they'll just throw it in the trash
How does the return get done without a box?
@@ev25zv Oh yeah that's a whole separate discussion: bullshit recycling programs that throw most of what's in the recycling bins straight in the garbage.
@@dannydaw59 A few returns programs are consolidated. So they bring the item, its given an identifying sticker, and added to a big box full of other stuff that all gets sent together.
I know you're talking about averages when you say "we each throw out" but that "we" is doing so much work. I haven't bought new clothes in more than 4 years. Yes I know it's stupid to even post this but I was like NO this is something that can be controlled, people can CHOOSE to stop buying clothes in excess and returning them in excess.
I support this. Thrifting, sewing and general practices that combat fast fashion would have the added benefit of fighting this problem a bit as well.
I totally feel you on this and agree. The only clothes that I ever dispose of are ones I've worn holes through beyond the point of repair.
The terrifying thing to consider, then, is that someone is throwing away enough pounds of clothing per year to make up for us who don't do that.
They cannot actually, this isn't the choice of average people, is the choice of the corporations, it's a systemic issue, they produce a lot already knowing most of it will be thrown away.
Exactly! “We” don’t have to buy cheap crap online.
We can make better choices, BUT most people will do the easiest thing. We need to change systems to make it easier for people to be sustainable.
One of the worst parts of living in poverty, is knowing I'm mostly not part of the problem, but in no position to make a difference. All I have ever been able to do is watch wealthy people ruin everything, while doing their best to blame it on me. Happy New Year everyone..........
I dont know if this helps or make it worse but this is true for most people in the planet, it's depressing to feel this powerless but most of us are.
@@bluester7177Most of us are actually middle class and absolutely can do something about it, but we like cheap, convenient, and disposable. What really irks me is how many people are strongly pro-union, pro-environment, anti-billionaire, and/or for immediate changes to minimize climate change, but then they buy fast fashion on Shamazon or Temu as if that isn’t a massive contributor to everything awful.
Individually, we are powerless, together, united we are the colossus that strikes fear in the hearts of those rich assholes. 🫡
@@elihan9Yes! This is how labor unions work too.
Look into the worldwide strike that’s being organized right now it’s main focus is for Palestine BUT it’s a great organizing effort that if we all join together hopefully we can realize that it doesn’t have to stop there, and we could find ways to make a difference as a whole
Happy to hear that I'm not part of this problem. I wear stuff til it literally falls apart, and the only clothes I order online are tee shirts, and as long as I get a medium, I know it's gonna fit. If I need new pants or shorts, I go to a store to try them on first.
I'm kind of disgusted to learn people do this. Pretty much the only thing I've ever returned was a piece of electronics that literally looked like it fell off the back of a truck.
I figured it out years ago. I had ordered a simple USB drive that got lost in shipment. Amazon said, "Oh, we'll send another." When I asked what I should do if the lost item appeared, the rep said, "Just keep it, it's not worth sending back to us." One honest employee taught me a very important lesson.
omg, that happened to me too only with a CD player. It didn't show up on time, so I told customer service. the guy said he'd send a replacement free. the next day, I got the one I ordered first. Being honest, I told customer service and they said, "ok, keep it."
happens a lot. Box of kcups got delivered to my house, wrong address. Call and asked if someone could pick it up and take it to the right address, nope. Asked if they could get in touch with the person to let them know it was going to be delayed, nope. Asked what they wanted me to do with it. Ahh, just throw it out.
It wasn't an honest employee. That's standard practice when the item is cheaper than it would cost to ship it back.
Yeah, the only thing I’ve ever returned is a string of fairy lights that were advertised as LED but were actually incandescent bulbs which means I didn’t get the item I was promised. I returned them and reported the listing because that’s actually dangerous, incandescent bulbs can get really hot and burn someone’s house down! They can be dangerous to have around small children and pets. I was livid
There are entire online clothing, shoes, etc sites where they promote this behavior - "We will ship you 5 styles, just return the 4 you don't like and pay for 1".
And the crappy thing is the salvation army and charity thrift shops have started to convert to trying to make as much profit as possible instead of providing cheap clothing and goods for the poor.
We have our charity thrift selling old kmart shirts more expensive than kmart.
Yup. Because it's not just the poor that shop there. In fact, it's mostly NOT the poor. It's people looking for cheap stuff to resell online. That's why I won't even bring my items there anymore. I only donate to local, vetted places that give the goods to low-income parents, direct to shelters, or I sell myself and do things like buy xmas gifts for low-income kids or buy families food. Dropping stuff off at Savers or "Sallys" is just putting $ in the wrong hands.
@@adntigger71015 I don't understand why people are convinced that because some depop resellers are buying vintage goods from thrift stores that a majority of the clothing there is not sold to the poor people of our nation. Most of the clothes in thrift stores are disgusting and horrible quality. Most of those depop girlies would rather dropsell garbage from alibaba than go inside a real thrift store. At least where I live, thrift stores are usually cheap as hell, super low quality, and filled with people that are either super visibly below the poverty line or teenagers with no money. (think family of 5 still wearing their work uniforms looking for shoes or kids all talking about how some random halloween costume would look so good at some party)
I thought those thrift shops are meant to fund whatever non-profits run them. The Salvation Army runs thrift stores to find their ministries to help drug addicts and felons get their lives back on track. Smaller non-profits do this too.
I have never heard the stores themselves are meant to help anyone. The stores are a place for the felons/addicts to work and build a work history.
Having to work at a day job is a component of many drug rehabs, as a part of restarting a healthy life
@izzyxblades I never heard about the work history part. But these charity thrift stores have two goals. Raise money for their cause and also provide cheap clothes (mostly) and other goods so disadvantaged people can afford them. They get generous government subsidies and tax exemptions to run.
Now they are seeking goods close to or over what they are in the retail shops. The ads I've started to see are now trying to get young people to buy from them as a fashion statement. It means money they make now goes to marketing and bonuses and the best things that disadvantaged families could use are being bought out by rich kids and opportunistic jerks.
@adntigger71015 it used to be poorer families that shopped there. Clothing and furniture were the biggest sellers. Now, they are getting squeezed out of the market.
This video really makes me realize how much I miss "Adam Ruins Everything." Such a great show!
There were a few episodes which were really bad propaganda so it's so nice to see Adam unchained from corporate interests.
@@omegahaxors9-11they had a couple episodes where they corrected themselves on several mistakes.
Same!
@@omegahaxors9-11such as?
@@omegahaxors9-11Which episodes?
Great job, Adam! Lately I did notice Amazon refunding me the amount and telling me to keep it, without explanation. I only do prime, not because of the "free" returns or "free" shipping, it's because I can bring the items to Whole Foods and also pickup from a locker. The lines at the post office used to be so long for these returns, and sometimes UPS is the same. Dropping it off at Whole Foods is easier. I also do my research - - I went to purchase a Ninja blender at a local store (let's say Target, Walmart) and at the time it was $199 to get the item. I shelved the item on list until my son officially broke it. I went on Amazon and it was $99, so there are items lower in cost on Amazon. All in all, the fees are better because they can be delivered to Whole Foods or your house, especially if your in a temporary situation where your car is out of commission until it can be repaired
I just recently went to a mall to go clothes shopping... They had almost nothing worth having and it was just all over the store with no rhyme or reason. Capitalism has ruined the one thing they were supposed to do, selling things. It just sucks trying to buy things now.
And Heaven help you if you have an odd size or proportions. I can spend all day going to two Walmarts, the mall, and a few other stores and likely find nothing that fits. I don't even care about what's fashionable. If pants fit and are a solid color, I buy them.
It's such a vicious cycle too. I prefer buying clothes in person, but because of the rise of online shopping it's harder and harder to find what you want in a store. So I either can't get what I want, spend all day going to every possible store, or do what I hate and buy it online - only to probably return it because it's low quality or doesn't fit as advertised.
This literally just happened to me with an electronic picture frame. I bought one online and it was broken when it showed up. I sent it back, and decided to look for one in stores. No store that I've looked in yet in my own town or another have had an electronic picture frame. So I either....don't buy one, drive to yet another city and hope, or buy one online. Ridiculous.
@@jeffreythomson3789 Last time I purchased in store: they were pushing online shopping so hard that they offered a discount to mail the garment home for me.
@@johanobesusfatjohn5836I feel this, for me it's pants and boots I can never find, I'm not even overweight just weird proportions ig. Boots are so hard to find.
@@jeffreythomson3789 You can always call ahead and make sure they have what you want (and then get there and find out that they actually don't).
I stopped buying Christmas presents, and asked my family to stop buying me stuff. If they want to give me a present, an hour of their time playing a board game I like will do.
Glad I'm not the only one
So who buys the gameboard?
@@Spiziked23 I have all the games I grew up with. Like literally the exact game. And I'm old! Some of the boards are held together with packing tape! 🤣 But also, if you're going to play the game, it's worth buying, no?
A return to a simpler time.
I tried that, they ended up giving me cash. No one likes to play them but me.
So I worked at an Amazon warehouse that specialized in apparel. There was a huge returns section. And some stuff would go to “refurb” or “damageland,” but most of the stuff would go right back into storage to be sold later. In fact, our quota was so high and claiming stuff was damages was so discouraged that a lot of people would glance at or totally ignore the products they were supposed to inspect to see if they were still sellable. It may be because we were an old Zappos warehouse, so a lot of our returns were shoes, but a vast majority of our products were properly returned for later use.
I guess you were in one where maybe regulations forced them to. Was in in europe?!
I just cant believe amazon did it out of free will, probably the waste was taxed or something over a quota?!
If the returns are mostly destroyed or sold at a fraction of original cost to liquidator warehouses, I'm curious how Amazon is capable of running its Try Before You Buy program, which literally encourages order-to-return... How can that be financially viable for a company to operate like that? They've lost money & product the moment the customer hits return, right?
If I do 5 orders of $500 in Try Before You Buy shoes and end up returning all of them, you're telling me all of that ends up at a third party, and Amazon is perfectly fine with losing hundreds of dollars of product at a fraction of its value?
another crazy thing is that only 20% of donated clothes make it to second hand stores. the other 80% gets sold to contractors that get resold in developing countries at higher costs
And there's mountainous piles of clothing in these places because there's too much.
I've made it a habit to always click the ads for polyester clothing then not buy it, bad for the environment (microplastics), bad for wearing (holds onto BO too easily), so itt the least I can do to make it bad for their pocket book so maybe they try something else.
We try to make all donations directly to local charity thrift shops. We have either the RCC (Resource and Crisis Center), a local charity that either sells the itmes at their thrift store, and uses the proceeds to benefit families in need, or sometimes they just give the donations directly to those families (especially furniture and appliances). Or the DAV (Disabled Veterans) thrift store. Never give to Goodwill or any large donation center.
This applies to monetary donations as well. Don't give to United Way or other clearinghouse charities, as most of your money never makes it to those in need. Give directly.
With some things, like clothes, you can even drive down a city street and just throw them -at- to homeless people who need them.
And when it's shipped off to poor countries, it completely undermines and destroys local retailers.
"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Flood a man with fish, and you'll destroy the local fisheries."
I went to the salvation army for drug rehab. We would work 8 hours a day without pay. We would fill entire semi trucks with clothes to send to third world countries.
@@GTAVictor9128+ Workers there have to select whats actually worth and whats crap. And, all the crap they have they can't send away to other countries. Which means that when international structures weight the amount of trash produced by countries, it's the poorest one that are punished for this overflow of production. Which "give an argument" (not that they need them to exist) to some racist rethorics about "how the US or Europe don't pollute that much compared to Africa and how pointing Northern countries when we talk about environmental issues is reverse racism" or other s**t like this.
I worked at a Zappos warehouse in the returns department. The returns process there was EXACTLY what he said DOESN'T happen. We opened boxes, unwrapped and refurbished them, folded them nicely and repackaged them for resale. Interesting to know we were such a minority
Honestly I took a lot of this video with a massive pinch of salt when he acted like it's nonsensical to subscribe to Prime for free shipping. Yes, it's not technically "free," but the amount it costs per month still is significantly less than shipping costs would be once you do the math. That's the entire point of the service. Ditto how he acted like it's surprising that there are more clothes than people....that just kinda seems common sense(and I don't know who the hell is throwing out 100lbs of clothes?).
@@sprouting_lady Here's a little secret: Amazon gifts prime subscriptions constantly. I get 4-5 months of free prime per year because they keep trying to entice me to sign up by offering me a free month (which I cancel every month). I've never paid for Prime, but I've been using it for about 4 years. I've never paid for shipping on Amazon. Even when they don't offer me a free subscription, if you have $25 in goods in your checkout, shipping is free anyways.
As for the 100lbs of clothes, that's the average. There's no doubt someone out there throwing out 900lbs of clothes while 8 other people throw out none. Sort of the same line of thinking about "whales" in mobile games. Most people play for free, but someone else out there spent hundreds of dollars on in-app purchases.
@@sprouting_lady I took it as him making the argument that your paying for your shipping in both the prime monthly fee, but also increased prices to balance out the shipping costs. Not to mention people with prime purchase far more than non prime members, its really to commit you to Amazon, as you've already bought in. Hard to justify buying elsewhere and paying shipping, when Amazon is giving it for "free". Also, the 100lbs of clothing tossed is all textiles in municipal waste, per capita, so does include industrial/commercial waste as well. Its also a rough estimate, but does give an idea on the quantity of textile waste created, just not how much each person is personally throwing away.
@@sprouting_ladyyou're paying less than you would without prime, but still more (or the same) than if prime didn't exist at all. To subsidize the shipping costs you're not paying first hand, the price of the stuff you buy goes up. That's how it works.
So today it does make sense if you buy a lot online, because if you don't have it you pay the subsidized price AND other shipping costs on top, you're basically paying for shipping twice. I have prime too, I buy online quite a bit (and where I live it's 19€/year for students!), but I recognize it's basically just marketing. I pay for the shipping, it's just not called "shipping costs" anymore. It's in the product price itself.
@@sprouting_ladyShipping is even without prime free in almost all cases, at least here in Europe, unless you keep ordering a tiny and silly amounts of small stuff that a grocery store within 1 minute walking distance would have for you anyway.
I caught myself being "free-return" brained when I went to a UPS store to ship out a piece of stained glass to a friend and when the employee asked me which shipping option I wanted I literally asked which one was free.
She stared at me until I realized what I said. Super embarrassing lol
my only fixation with free shipping is that it's so damn difficult to find what i want in a physical store. i tried to buy a kitchen torch last month. pretty standard gadget/utensil, right? they certainly sell the butane in store. but the torch itself? nobody had it. and my options to buy online were either a $7 torch with $6 shipping, or a $13 torch with free shipping. i actually went for the $7 one, because it came in a color i liked, but that package has been sitting in a distribution center in waxahatchie for 3 weeks so i gave up, got a refund for my "lost" item, and ordered the $13 one which arrived at my house the next day.
@@dietotaku maybe not helpful now, but hardware stores like Lowes and Home Depot 100% carry these torches. Its a tool that the cooking industry only recently popularized.
@@dietotaku Check the smoke shops, theyll have it trust me. But at this points its clearly not worth the return.
Home Depot doesn't beat Amazon on price on any brand name item. Amazon will bring most items to my door next day for the same price as going to HD and wasting time and gas.
@@Thunder.Sizzle right but the benefit of buying at a hardware store is you don't have to wait to cook or bake something on a different day than the day you wanted to. You're stating an obvious fact in opposition to something that the other poster may not have known. That's simply not helpful.
I rarely return items from Amazon…but the other day I did and I waited for a shipping label only to be told “no need to return this item”. I felt bad that I was actually keeping something and getting a refund. 😮
I had this happen to me once ... and it seemed weird to me.
Is cheaper for them to not lose money on shipping a 2nd time. Then sortint ect
I sometimes fall head over heels into Amazons’ “we”ll refund your item, no need to send it back happy place”. I ended up with a $50 uncomfortable bath robe I didn’t pay for or return
You say "uncomfortable bath robe," I hear "a useful pile of free towels/washcloths/rags waiting to be cut to size."
@@theprinceofinadequatelighting My thoughts exactly
So you're blaming Amazon for your inability to take the trouble to put the item back in its box and set it back on the porch to be picked up? That sounds pretty lame.
@@BrightBlueJimif Amazon determines you don't have to return the item, they won't pick it up or provide a label, and returns don't go to the same address from the package, so what are you supposed to do? It's not an option. The thing to do is find someone else in your life who will use the item or donate it
@@BrightBlueJim oh honey
We have 2 areas in my Amazon warehouse solely dedicated to destroying the items you returned. 2 teams of people working 24 hours a day, just destroying stuff. All day, everyday
That’s insane.
That's sad. 😢 Most of the returns are still good.
Putting aside the obvious issue of how wasteful it is, that sounds kinda depressing if you have to do it all day everyday.
...but tbh it'd probably be fun for a couple hours or so xD
Such a waste of
Meanwhile the people destroying the stuff aren't even paid enough to afford any of the crap they're destroying
I love thrift shopping. Not in a morally superior kind of way, but in a "I feel like an archaeologist making amazing discoveries" kind of way.
Thrift shopping sadly has its own evils attached to it, but not as bad as buying new.
The evil is really just everyday sclapers, who wait until loading day at DAV, St. Vincent Depaul, Salvation Army and Goodwill, then buy up all the good items, and resell them on ebay...
I could understand this practice if it was someone who cannot hold a job, but often the people I ran into who do this already earn well, and do this as their own "side hustle" for vacations, or they can more comfortably bump up their 401k at their main job because the extra money they bring in selling things on ebay and facebook marketplace
@pauls4522 Yeah. That's why I don't consider it a morally superior position. There are so many inherent issues with our current system.
I've always liked buying clothes from thrift shops because I know that they are already broken in. If they are going to shrink in the wash, it's already happened, if there are dyes that are going to bleed in the wash, it's already happened, if there was a manufacturing defect that would cause it to fall apart after a couple of weeks, it wouldn't have lasted long enough to be donated. Not only am I saving money, but I've let someone else deal with all the potential pitfalls of brand new clothes for me.
I would, but I don't like the idea of wearing something that's been worn by someone else. I do however support resell shops in other ways, like hunting down rare games, and other "nerd" items(not to resell myself I'm a collector, "scalpers" are my competition. And, I have a neice and nephew who both take after me some how, when it comes to gaming and other "nerd" ways, so they are gifted at times as well, just saying I'm not 100% selfish like those a**hole scalpers.)
@@smileyeagle1021
Same: secondhand tends to be much better quality because it wouldn't have made it to that shop if it fell apart after a few washes.
I remember back to circa 2015, if a shipment arrived damaged you could/have to send pictures of the damage done and they would refund you with no need to return (same if it was different than descriptions or whatever), now they removed the options of sharing pictures in chats and always have to return.
I had to start making my own clothes a few years ago due to some developing hypersensitivities. I am so, so very grateful that I can do that now, it's a massive game changer. No surprise polyester, all seams are sturdy, no shrinking during first washes, and the ability (and extra fabric) to repair the vast majority of damage that does happen due to wear and tear. It's strange how that feels almost like a weird counter-culture thing now.
Are you able to prevent irritating seams? I’m considering doing this kind of thing because I can’t handle seams but it’s literal sewing so idk if there any good solution
You can go flat felled seams on most seams which are generally pretty confortable. But also you can make things that don't have tags, that only use fabric that feels good on your skin, fit you perfectly etc, and that makes a big difference.
How did you learn and get started?
@@TatharNuar I know I'm not the target for the question but, a lot of fabric stores like JOANN offer classes to teach beginners how. I also know some community centers and knitting clubs allow new members to sign up online and pick some things up. You can also look into community colleges/technical schools mainly for courses in theater costume design (will teach you to make normal clothes too) and "life long learning" or similar sounding courses. The latter are classes for mainly retirees to learn various life skills they never had a chance to learn before. Like sewing or playing guitar for example.
@@thebeaside Yes, that. Flat-felled seams, along with altering waistbands to be broader and using comfortable fabric (I make and wear a lot of flannel skirts these days, they work amazingly well for me).
Anytime a company gives something for “free” , it means that it’s taking more money from something else or it was overpriced in the first place.
Nah, if company gives you something for "free", it's something you should be paid for
They price in some returns to the cost usually, and it’s better than companies selling junk and charging you to return it
As a former employee of Costco I can tell you they do make every effort to resell any returns they receive. The only exception is food (by law) which is composted if possible. Only a very small fraction of items go back to the manufacturer or to sites like Dlisted. I do agree with buying second hand first and try to do so as much as possible!
Did not know this. Now I feel guilty returning food 😭
@@summerjohnson9749 owner of a small grocery store, its true any food items returned are thrown out, another fun fact, we have to throw out any fresh food items (veggies-meats etc.) out if you decide at the checkout you don't want it. had a customer just on Friday decide they didn't want about 50 dollars worth of greens, saw me throw them in the trash behind the register. Asked me why I am throwing them out, I told her that after a customer touches them I have to by law, then she had the nerve to ask me to give them to her. I told her nope you just cost me 50 in sales and I will have to sell about 500 dollars more in groceries just to break even. Most people do not understand Grocery stores are the lowest profit margin business to run maybe if we are luck about 3 percent.
@@summerjohnson9749Nah, they want you to return things you don't like. Costco has no problem shifting to a different item when people return it frequently. If you get rotten or gross food, and a lot of others return it too, they know the quality is not up to par. In the long run, it actually helps! Costco is just the exception :) Please feel free to return anything that isn't to your standards!
@@summerjohnson9749 Why?
It usually isn’t a big source of returns (food). Most people only return food if there is something wrong with it. The worst is when people have parties and buy lots of food and return half. I saw a person try to return 50 packages of hot dogs after a graduation party. I know some locations do inform these people that the food will be thrown away and in courage them to donate any unopened products to local food banks.
Amazon isnt the only ones. I just tried returning a SEALED box of cepacol lozenges that i bought from my local walmart and they said it was going straight in the trash. I asked why and they said any item bought from the pharmacy area, even if still perfectly sealed, goes straight in the trash becase it could have been "tainted" or something along those lines. I ended up keeping the item instead because of that and cancelling the refund. What a complete waste!
Adam, you left out some important points...All my Amazon returns have been from misrepresented descriptions/photos of the item or the exact thing I wanted arrives damaged because of shitty packaging. Those two things are solely caused by Amazon's business practices. People know this and would not buy without the free returns. Sure, people abuse the system, but that's not the main problem.
^this. I have to rely on the refunds & free returns, because otherwise I'd be spending hundreds on the completely wrong item. Like last month when they sent me a vacuum instead of the monitor I ordered. Companies throwing away returns is still a problem, and there are certainly some commodities that might be better off to get not online (like clothing).
Another thing I’ve sold on Amazon and had customers take that position against somethings they have bought and it doesn’t get thrown away, Amazon literally ships it back to me after they verify if the customers claim is accurate or not
Yep, I started watching this because I do buy on Amazon a lot (I don't have a lot of money and Im trying to build a small business) and I wanted to know what he was going to say, but he focused heavily on clothing and I very rarely buy clothing on there (and do look at sizes so I haven't had to return it and if its wrongly sized I've given it away). I do have to do returns, but it's always because of exactly what you said - wrong item sent, broken, listed wrong or had misleading listings, etc. None of this is my fault, so the returns process *should* be free because I definitely shouldn't pay to send them back. That said, it's good information to have. I just wish he didn't focus so heavily on fast fashion, because that's only a portion of what is returned.
Right, but he does kind of cover this. I imagine he'd say, *don't buy these things online*. If you find it in a store you're way less likely to be sold something deceptive
Why are you repeatedly buying from a platform known for misleading product listings? At this point, I buy in person and local for important items. Or I buy from speciality online stores with solid reviews. Surely better for a small business to do so then go through the cost and hassle of misleading items?
I wish they weren't allowed to use the term "return". It's not a return if they aren't reselling most of the items they get.
We had laws about false advertising in this country once...
Why is it that so many Americans think that America is the only place on earth? These same practices happen across the globe. Get of you frikn horse.
Go cry about it
What is the term in your language for sending something back to where you got it then?
I don't think that is what the word "return" means
Then what does the word return mean? Because the dictionary says nothing about reselling.
Perhaps I should go watch Reselling of the Jedi. You know, he didn't just return, he resold.... what? it makes no sense.
Another reason for me to keep buying at thrift stores. Even if the item only lasts a year, it's still better for the planet than a "new" garment that only lasts 2 years.
And a lot of thrift stores are outright exploitive while over charging their merchandise. They use volunteers and low wage workers they claim to be a charity that contributes more to CEO salaries than their donations
As several already stated, everything you return doesn't end up in the trash. Even if it does happen. But the solution isn't to stop shopping online, we need better logistic solutions that take care of returns. You can't just take your measurements and think that is a solution, the problem is that companies have very different sizes. I can buy everything between L and XXL and it is differences even if it's the same brand. But less than between brands. That there should be better standards for sizes is one thing.
Most brands have already adapted to online shopping. In the past the stores would bring in every sizes of an item. Today they might just get M and L and tell the rest to go to their website.
regardless of sizing issues, purchasing less clothes all together would better help the issue and is more achievable.
Most of the online stores I shop at give PRODUCT MEASUREMENTS for each size rather than giving a size chart. This is so much more useful. With that, I *can* compare my measurements to the chart and decide what size to buy based on how I want the item to fit (or realise that the way this particular item has been designed, there is no size of it that will look good on me). This means that I can order items from the same store and they will all be different sizes, but they will all fit me the way that I want. For instance, a size chart says my body is "1X" but if I look at the product measurements I quickly see that in a button-up blouse that I don't want to gap between button holes, I might need a 2X or 3X, and on the other hand, I might be better off with a sweater in size L or even size M because there is currently a trend to make sweaters so big you can fit a whole nother person in them, and some people really like that, but as I am already plus size, I'd rather not have clothes that make me look bigger than I already am.
As somebody who works for a UPS Store, we’ve literally turned into the Amazon return store. It’s over 75% of my daily duties. We try to tell customers that those returns go in the garbage. I really appreciate you doing a video about this. More people need to know how absolutely wasteful returns are. We advise people to try to resell the items so the items have a chance but we all know laziness trumps all & the dopamine hit of getting your money back so quickly with little to no work makes our attempts fruitless. None of my staff uses Amazon unless we know we’re going to keep it!!! Thanks Adam!!
And no one is more entitled and rude than the Amazon return customers, I had a lady a few weeks ago ask me to stay open 40 more minutes after close because she forgot one Amazon return 😭
@@Fragamitake Absolutely. People don’t read instructions then blame it on us. I can only apologize for the incompetence of both Amazon and their user base so much. I feel like things we actually do - and get paid for - like shipping and print are consistently put on the backburner and not given the appropriate amount of time and effort as we do to those Amazon consolidations. Now it’s even worse with Amazon defaulting to Whole Foods and other providers even when the customers choose The UPS Store (or so they state) and charging people for returning to TUPSS. Plus the things people return are downright stupid. Did you really need that 45c back for a sticker??!! But - sending support to you, my comrade. Next week is going to be return insanity.
The numbers break down like this - over 90% of all returns are trashed. 5% go to resell places. 4% (mostly electronics) go back into the cycle. Less than 1% are donated.
A lot of people need their money and they don't have the time to waste because doing what you say cost them time which means that also cost them money. Who's going to do that for an item that's like $10 bucks? Or even 20? My time is way more important I get paid more than 20 an hour. If it's broken too it won't sell. It's okay you don't actually need to single handlely save the world. Just do your job and let people decide on their own.
Resell it vs return has nothing to do with being lazy... ya get less money and have to deal with creepy people and everything that's just stupid.
"the truth? you cant handle the truth". exactly how i feel lately about nearly everything. i learn the dirty little secrets behind all of this, and i just hate it all. i cant buy anything anymore, i cant eat anything anymore, i cant enjoy anything anymore, everything has been ruined, everything is corrupt. whats the point? gj tho Adam, gj John Stewart, gj John Oliver. you all do good work, things we need to know, i just feel terrible knowing it.
Yeah I don’t know how to live in this world anymore. I don’t fly I haven’t bought clothes in three years I don’t really go out anymore. I’m working on cutting out meat. Then I see asshats on the internet who seem completely oblivious to everything or worse, they don’t care. Jfc how can you not care. Is the world full of psychopaths? I just want out. I just want out so bad.
That’s why we need to focus on systemic change and community building, things need to change and while there’s no easy fix, we need to build community systems that exist seperate to these capitalist nightmares
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Join and get active in a labor union. That's how I'm able to sleep at night.
@___.51 As one of those people, the thing is, I do care. But in our world right now, there aren't really alternatives, so I can care, I can hate everything about it... but I still have to do things -- go out, even something as simple as being clothed.
Good example -- I'm disabled, and have chronic fatigue as one of those things. Options like Amazon are often necessary in getting me what I need. I can go for Walmart, but the things I need might not be there, and are they any better, etc.? I hate the way things are, I feel like crap for doing them, I do care... but I have to take part anyway, because something that will have bad outcomes is the only option in our world.
I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but I hope it does.
@@___.51you okay?
Started buying most of my clothes on eBay a few years ago and it was one of the best decisions I've made. It's like a thrift store where you can actually find what you want.
Only problem is the prices, but I got a marlboro ferrari jacket for the low price of $450
@@sunnohhit’s better than chasing sales/deals
The used garment section on eBay is pretty big where you could start a side hustle of your garage.
@@sunnohh yeah the prices are my biggest problem too, and the shipping. i don't mind buying used clothes, but i expect to pay used clothing prices. miss me with that "stained and threadbare sweater for $18 plus $15 shipping" shit. i will give you two dollars.
I'd love to buy everything I need at stores in my area, but often they don't carry things in the store. I'm told they can order it for me online. The only choice is to order and hope it fits/looks good/etc. I recently bought 8 pairs of shoes to keep 2 - could not find a local retailer of the brand within 200 miles. Stores are moving more and more to an online presence with limited local stock.
I spent a few months carefully thrifting my wardrobe and now I've a closet full of high quality clothes, and haven’t bought anything but socks and undergarments in over a year.
This is my goal. But online thrifting is such a scam. Similarly, they'll offer you a partial refund to KEEP what doesn't fit so you can throw it away instead.
Absolute goals
One of the problems with the clothing industry is just how cheap the materials are these days. That doesn’t make the garment cheaper. I have clothing that I wore as a teenager that my own daughter enjoys wearing. Not that she is forced into wearing hand me downs, she just wants to. Unfortunately most of the garments I’ve purchased in the last decade are so cheaply made, that they either develop holes quickly, or come apart at the seams. No hand me downs if I can’t even get a year out if it. My daughters backpack didn’t even last the first day of school!!! I’ve offered to buy her a new one, but no, she wants THAT one, so every couple of weeks I’ll have to replace a zipper here or two, restitch seams, and so on.
I so agree. One washing and it is all pills and wrecked seams. They might as well make it out of tissue paper it is so flimsy and useless. Hand me downs for kids are a thing of the past, nothing lasts long enough. Yet another way the middle class is being nickel and dimed to death.
I have clothes from my mom that are still my favorite items because of their comfort and quality
I used to obtain pallets of amazon returns and try to resell them. It actually wasn't the worst way to make money but yeah clothing was not even worth the effort and I ended up taking any clothing to goodwill.
When my mom passed away we had a huge rummage sale
I sold her clothes for 25 cents and fill a bag for $1.00
Made $100 in just selling her clothes
I've definitely worked at many different retailers where we re-sell returned items.
I work at a retailer that processes Amazon returns and Adam’s set decor is giving me real anxiety 😂 Amazon is ~50% of the daily volume and they generate a TON of plastic waste and mess
i work at a giant warehouse that deals in returns, overstock, etc it's a huge and strange business
Also a lot of the retailers that process the returns were not designed for the sheer volume of returned junk Amazon generates. Our space is cluttered and a legit tripping hazard
I’ve worked in a Amazon return warehouse. We actually have to open every box and examine the item. We stand in one place for 10 hours while everyone takes lunch at the exact same time. So yes people do open the boxes. Some is thrown away but most they try to resell if they can. Or send it back to the seller. Depending on what contract they have setup. But a lot of stuff just sits there until it’s decided what to do. Mostly they get trashed. Also Zappos is the brand they give the first pair of work shoes to workers.
They give you work shoes? That's a benefit I never got at my Amazon facility.
@@douglasboyle6544 yeah in the hiring process they give you a voucher for a certain amount for shoes from zepo and i it didn’t cover the full amount you paid the rest and was mailed to your house.
What site does Amazon sell returned items on?
yes Amazon employees, Delta, certain other airlines and workplaces are on a big list for the ZAW (Zappos at Work) program. it ends up as basically one pair of work shoes per year roughly, about 110 bucks worth of credit. Mgmt at your place should set everyone up soon as they start
@@douglasboyle6544
Correct, majority is actually resold!
11:38 I take accurate measurements and then return everything I bought because 1) the size chart provided was all lies, 2) the size chart was about the dimensions of the clothing, not the dimensions of the human wearing them, so everything is skin tight, or 3) the garment is meant for East Asian bodies, so while the width fits, everything is too short on my Germanic body. I did my due diligence, so it's the seller's fault for not providing accurate information to buyers.
This - Yesss!!! I’ve had to return so many clothes because despite doing my due diligence to find out what size is most likely to fit me {Ex: Excessively studying the size chart, measuring myself, looking @ how the item fits on the models shown, & looking @ all the reviews to see what people said about the fit} - they still didn’t fit!!! Either that or the item was shittily constructed or had a significant design flaw…………Polyester is also an issue for me - esp. for socks (because I’m sweaty) - but sometimes the material composition either isn’t listed on the site or it’s inaccurate.
I only ever buy shoes and gloves online. I have bought one pair of pants and was satisfied with the fit, but that was 4 yrs ago.
@@jas2804 If you just skim through the t-shirts in a Goodwill you'll find that depending on the brand there are Smalls that are bigger than 2XLs...
This. I keep a measuring tape on hand and check every sizing chart, it's still hit or miss.
I've had a similar experience, as, in "American" sizes I'm pretty much between medium & large, but far too often, if I buy clothes online it'll be too small, too short, or waaaaaay off, like someone sent me children's clothes... I've tried not to send them back if I know someone who can fit them, but c'mon man, it's not my job to fill someone else's wardrobe...😂
I am glad that I already basically do what you suggest to do mainly because I don't want to have to return anything cuz it's a hassle. I highly recommend to anyone to go to a sewing shop and get a sewing tape measure. It's a role of measuring tape that is flexible like cloth, and is designed to take body measurements. They are not that expensive and can save a lot of headache. Do get someone else to take your measurements if at all possible though.
I used to work for a waste disposal company and in 2019 they landed an Amazon contract. There was SO MUCH waste! Like I knew big business just trashed things but I never would have been able to realize the amount without seeing it. Returns, cancelled orders, expired and damaged product, everything goes to landfill. By the way, if any employee tried to take any of the perfectly fine merchandise you'd get fired immediately. So the amount of wastefulness is truly heartbreaking.
Then I don't understand why Amazon doesn't have a specific section for "Used or opened box" products sold at a discount & just add "no returns/sales final." Lots of other companies do that!
Amazon regular retail products are known to be more expensive than other retail stores, so here they could keep customers from going elsewhere and not waste all those mostly unused items.
It's Amazons policies that stink. Bezos hate his workers & environment.
@@andreah6379 if I remember right, I want to say I hear it has something to do with tax law. If they trash product it can be claimed as a loss or something like that. It's all a money game
The ability to go through returns and take them would be a huge benefit/perk to Amazon employees. They'd get and keep employees a lot more easily, saving money on staff turnover AND waste disposal. But Bezos could never do something nice for his employees, even if it saved him money.
This reminds me of why I'm proud of my daughter. She often buys second hand clothes. For a prom dress, she bought an antique dress online, some jewelry and accessories from antique store, spent easily less than $100, and got quite a number of compliments for how she looked. She could probably resell all that for what she paid.
That is smart. Similar story. My sister hated the grad (we didn’t have prom) dress options that were available so she rented a dress from Ren clothing company. She looked like a gothic queen and it was cheaper to do so. You can always rent special occasion clothing.
I came from a time where you got made fun of if you bought second hand clothes. Now it's cool to wear stuff that looks like you got it from your aunt/uncle's closet.
Antique is cheaper? Whenever I see something labeled antique it drains my wallet.
@@FDR_progressive_liberal Hehe, she has a knack for a bargain I guess.
@@FDR_progressive_liberal "Antique" is always overpriced, that's why I only buy old things. If I hear employees in a thrift store say something is antique, I walk right out the front door.
As someone who doesn't know or care much about fashion and just rotates between like 10 different polos I bought 5 years ago, I'm disgusted that this is what so many other people are doing. The one goal of an "economy" is the efficient allocation of scarce resources; this is a spectacular fail.
Most people are super wasteful. No one in my family or friends were like that. As I’ve made new friends in life I’ve seen shocking levels of waste.
This is so true, my daughter worked at Amazon in the return department. I was also manager of a salvation army thrift store. An you wouldn't believe the amount of brand new stuff people donate from high end stores, like Vera Wang, and Louie Vuitton. My daughter's loved it. I did just about all my Christmas shopping there lol
I'm an Amazon delivery driver and I deliver unwrapped items that have clearly been opened, taped shut, and returned with old address labels and all so this cannot be universal.
He's definitely exaggerating. Also, how often have you, as an Amazon delivery driver, had to pee into a bottle? Probably never, right? Yet, Adam still references that one time that happened in this video as if it still happens all the time or is even company policy!
^ paid Amazon shill
@@lulucool45 Who are you calling a paid shill!?
I've definitely received items that were clearly previous returns. I even regularly buy "used, like new" items sold by Amazon warehouse, which are typically items that have been returned for whatever reasons...so clearly they don't trash ALL returns and do resell some.
@@satya_satoriyes and no. That's not Amazon. That's smaller resellers that buy pallets and go through the stuff and relist what they can. With that said... Supporting that system will cause it to hopefully grow and keep more stuff from the landfill.
This is crazy to me that ppl get rid of so much clothing. I’m 40 years old and I still have clothes I bought when I was literally 14. Are ppl really changing their wardrobe this frequently?!
They don't. No idea where Adam got his numbers but the entire planet doesn't even make as much clothing as the USA supposedly throws away. But people do get rid of a lot of clothing, and most of it ends up as bags of "unsorted rags" for use in industry. I worked at an oil refinery one summer that was a purchaser of said bags -- paper towels are useless for sopping up the kinds of spills we had but you wouldn't want to buy new towels for it either. So... People's discarded last season shirts were put to use.
Younger people sucked into fast fashion definitely are. Or they have to buy and buy and buy because so much is made of crappy materials and poorly made into the bargain. After all, it's profit for the company so there's no reason to change.
That and it gets most of the time cheaper made , and way less holding.
Also its always nice to use decent rags as, rags to clean?! I also know sewing can do a lot. I also hope crafty cosplayer use a lot.
Built in obsolescence is also a factor. It's why you need to buy a new phone every 2 to 3 years because your battery burns out. And clothes are made to degrade faster so you have to run out and buy more.
@@Char00000 Yes but no. Today we can't make a battery that is able to keep the same charge forever. A modern lithium cell can be charged about 300-500 before losing noticable in power. The larger the battery, the less noticable it is. A phone with 69% battery health is in worse actual shape than say a Tesla with 69% battery health.
The lifetime of a lithium cell depends on a whole bunch of factors but by simply the way lithium cells work, you can't really make them break down "early" unless you discharge them below safe voltage and/or charge them with too many amps.
So you've got one store, and you can return anything to it, but they somehow turn it into a form of collective punishment.
America really is the most boring dystopia.
Except.... Amazon's free shipping isn't exclusive to America or the US. Don't let facts and logic get in the way though.
@@gatchpaints Amazon originates from America ya big weirdo so the problem clearly started there. But don't let facts and logic get into the way of your fragile ego who can't take criticism of you're own country. God forbid the USA take any responsibility for anything.
@@gatchpaints yeah nobody here uses it, man
Nobody "here" where? LOL. talk about a sentence that says absolutely nothing. cuckooo. "nobody", yeah right. Absolutism is a sure fire way to say "I'm exaggerating and what I say is complete nonsense." The entire statement "yeah nobody here uses it, man" says nothing at all. nobody who? here where? uses what? half the words in your sentence need clarification. What has happened to our education system, @AdamaConover ?@@JemaKnight
one? this is every retailer in the entire world, who are you kidding, americans are so myopic.
We have a bunch of return Amazon stores in my town that buy lots of stuff from returned products to stuff that was gonna be thrown out. One guy bought a iPhone box thinking it was a phone case to find a working iPhone 12 in the case! Hopefully more return stores will start to come about as common
That sounds like a pretty great idea. I’d love to see something like that in my area.
There is Amazon Renewed and Amazon Warehouse available online. They don't make it easy to find, but, it is there.
Same here. They sell stuff dirt cheap. I got a tool for $12 that costs $180 on Amazon lmao.
This is exactly why I only buy things online that I actually NEED, and it's typically more practical items (household goods, for instance). With clothes, buy them in store, I wear it until I can't, and then it goes straight to a donation center. This is absolutely insane. Thanks for covering this Adam!
If you cannot wear it, then who can? I literally wear my clothes out. Then they might become shop rags if there is enough material left.
@johnchestnut5340 if you gain or lose weight you might not fit in your perfectly good clothes anymore
@@lucydonohue4919 I don't gain or lose that much weight. And if I did lose weight, I could still wear my clothes. I don't care about fashion. Am I clean? Am I decent? Am I warm and dry? Am I protected from the elements in general? Am I protected at work? That's what I care about.
@johnchestnut5340 that makes total sense on a personal level, but I wasn't referring to you personally. I was responding to your question, "If you cannot where it, then who can?" The answer is some people's weight changes and so then they donate their still good clothes.
@lucydonohue4919 You miss the point of my comment. Have a good day.
last time I was this early, adam was ruining everything
Who says he still isn't?
@@drakerbaker1756He's not ruining anything. He's opening our eyes to the lies and harsh realities of things that we've been deluded in.
What's he doing now? Fixing things?
He still is
@@papertape7911 He's trying to help us know what we can do to help ourselves and these problems.
Adam missed the primary reason clothes cant be resold. In my experience, they hype up the supposed comfort of clothes, then more often than not deliver clothes made of the cheapest materials it does not even feel like fabric at all, more like it was woven from thin strands of plastic, which no one would ever buy if they felt the material with their own hands. And do not get me started on food items, Amazon sent me literal CRUSHED instant ramen cups, and would not allow a return because it is a food item, so I am now screwed with part of my food budget for the month.
Hi, certainly not trying to be a bother, but I had a food item that was incorrect recently and reached out to the seller via amazon. They refunded me and sent a replacement without asking for a return since it was food.
I've sent emails directly to the amazon support team or left 1-star reviews and sometimes they will offer a refund if you do those extra steps. I know it can be demoralizing when it seems like it says no, but basically, I just keep hitting I have a 'different issue' other than a refund (like saying it didn't show up) until I get to a real person, it lets me send photos, or it just lets me refund it.
If you've already tried these things or just don't have the energy I completely understand, I just wanted to help if possible since I've been there with really tight budgets before! When you're trying to just survive, it's okay to push back with whatever means you can. ❤ Either way I'm sorry this happened!
And it's because clothes aren't made of cloth anymore that that clothing dump in the Atacama Desert is poisoning the land and water
Feels like thin strands of plastic because it is. Polyester is EVERYWHERE in the clothing market, and good materials are hard to come by 🤦🏻♀️ Another reason I just don't buy clothes anymore. I hate it here
Amazon has started charging for returns depending on the return option you select. I noticed I was charged if I chose something like "I don't like it", compared to "Item is defective".
Counterpoint: I just returned a door handle, purchased for the main entrance of my parents' house. The Schlage box was in OK condition but was sealed with *Amazon* shipping tape (that branded paper tape with reinforcing fibers). It rattled a lot, and when opened contained an obviously used batch of door hardware, nothing wrapped, a couple of the little baggies for screws with holes in them, and several pieces missing entirely... obviously, a repacked USED item that had been sealed with brand-new Amazon shipping tape and sent to me. The replacement was an identical box that was tightly closed (no Amazon-branded tape), with all its contents wrapped to protect the surface & placed in cardboard holders to keep things from shifting around. That first box was definitely a "re-processed" return. Looks like at least a few things slip through the filters....
Also shoes.
So when you buy shoes are the store, you think no one has ever tried them on before? You think they are trashing them after you try them on? What is the difference when Amazon does the same thing then?@
I've come to appreciate some aspects of having grown up with little money, one of which being that I was brought up to enjoy shopping in charity shops. My dad had a great eye for spotting quality clothes and known brands.
I always have a donations bag ongoing in my home and once donated a brand new pair of boots that were too tight because my cats destroyed the box and I didnt want to deal with trying to get a refund, its a nice thought that someone might have found them and loved them as much as I'd hoped to
I would love to buy clothes in person. However, for people of odd sizes there are literally no other options except online.
There used to be some stores around here that sold my size, but the Brick and Mortar stores all closed in 2020, and got bought up by a single online retailer.
It's the only place to go. And it sucks, because I'm very picky about how fabric feels. And there is just no way to tell
I hate not being able to feel the fabric first, but I'm in the same boat.
8:48 that still doesn’t put to bed the question of why they don’t donate as many of them as possible.
It's for this reason that I am super picky about what I buy and use everything I get until it falls apart. The best thing to do is purchase stuff from the thrift store.
Thrift shopping and yard sailing are how I get my consumerist addiction tendencies tickled while also remaining in a decent budget. Best feeling in the world is getting a vintage piece of clothing that's in amazing condition.
You and me both. Thrifting is sustainable, cheaper, and completely bypasses the clothing companies causing this mess. There's also no other place to try on hundreds of different styles to find what works for you.
@@TonesBalones I don't know where you go thrifting, but I have trouble finding my size. Finding XS, XXL XXXL and such sizes isn't difficult, but M or L Mens', not to mention belts and other accessories. Perhaps you mean Yard Sales, which would likely have more popular sizes, but thrift stores -not where I live.
@@squirlmy My unconventional advice is to shop in the women's section. It works especially well for pants. As you probably know, men will hold onto clothes to the grave, so finding trendy clothing is difficult. If you are a men's M/L I would recommend a pant size 10/12, which are very common in women's, and there's way more variety in style. Fortunately for me I'm 5'8 so I'm short enough to pull that off. Other than that, just stick to finding outerwear like coats and blazers (men or women's), then putting them over your regular outfits.
I worked for a food bank that we got Amazon return boxes "donated" for a hefty cost. We ended up being outbid for those boxes. However, the amount of plastic generated was staggering...everything was individually wrapped in a plastic bag...for every 18 wheeler of return boxes at least a 1/4 of it was in excessive repackaging...
Wow, this makes me realize that stores like Nordstrom are the outlier. I worked for them for a bit and EVERY return (unless it was damaged or unclean or something like that) was put back on the floor, including online returns.
I suspect part of this is the high average price of each individual SKU that Nordstrom sells. It's a reasonably luxury store, so a single item refund could result in a greater overall profit loss if it were destroyed instead of attempting to sell again.
I'm an eBay seller who never offers free shipping or free returns. I do well, and sell lots of 2nd hand clothing, which is a growing market. I think people are beginning to wise up to the pricing and "recycling" scams.
It’s something that bothers me personally so much every year, and every year it gets harder and harder to avoid. My city’s one mall is almost completely gone and the stores that remain only sell their cheapest or most basic offerings in person. I used to go to local boutiques or shops instead, but inflation has hit our Main Street so damn hard this year. It feels like there’s no good option these days. I wind up driving to a city 2.5 hours away just to shop in person. It’s nuts.
The real Christmas gift is a new Adam Conover video! Thank you so much for this awesome gift 😉
Im really quite fond of my autism because it has dictated that I must wear the same outfit every day. I have multiple of the same outfit, I wear nothing else, I buy nothing else, and it will not be thrown away ever. Autism for the win, baybee.
I absolutely feel this. I buy multi-packs once I find something I can wear, and I rotate them when I do laundry so they will wear out at approximately the same time. Too much?
It's important to note that because of all this online shopping the in-person shopping experience is suffering. I can't go pick up a mall pretzel unless I drive an hour and a half because they're so deserted. The clothing inside is just odds and ends. It's dire inside them. Also for some reason the sizes are changing? It might just be women's clothing but I've went to an 14 to an 8. Same with shirts. And it's never consistent. I own a pair of 22s that fit me the same as my 6s.
Not just womens sizes. Mens shoes are different sizes based on the country of origin. When I buy Chinese sneakers they're size 19 but when I buy my American made boots they're size 15. Plus shirts are an issue. If it's made in Asia it's a 4xlt yet still not long enough. But if it's made in Mexico/ south America I usually get a 2xlt and it's the right size
I've ordered so much xs clothing that was huge on me. But it makes sense. The size of the average American woman is bigger. It's much more lucrative to change the sizing to reflect that than to expand what you manufacture and sell
Another aspect of the return myth is that a lot of people buy items based on the comfort of knowing it can be returned but then simply don't do it because it's too much of a hassle. Instead of Dick Rocket Man throwing things out, it's the customers themselves.
yeah its so hard to take something back to a store or better yet, put it on your porch.
Exactly. People just forget to do it, don't think it's worth their time, any number of reasons, and the returns are harder now as they (AMZ at least) don't have free UPS pickup for most items, even when damaged. They keep a LOT of money off of this.
I'm that guy. I also avoid online shopping as much as possible.
This is so true. I have missed many return windows because life got a little too busy or i simply forgot. Usually in that case I try to find a use for it.
This is me, right here. It's why I only buy on Amazon as a last resort. I do prefer to buy local, but sometimes what I want is not being sold locally.... and it is nice to know that if things don't work out, I have some hope of getting my money back if I can find the executive function... but more often I Just end up giving stuff away or donating. Not usually clothing, either.
I work in Ecommerce, and even I absolutely love the 2nd hand angle. I'm more thrilled when I find something awesome at Goodwill, because I win twice.
You might want to look a little harder into Goodwill...that "win" probably isn't anywhere near a nice as you think it is.
@@CyphDragon Oh, I hear ya. Still beats new fast fashion, as those aren't exactly spotless avatars of corporate ethics, either, though.
@@roysteves I'm not sure it does, since Goodwill gets all of their products "donated," then pays people literally pennies to pick through it all, and gets to claim itself as a nonprofit charity while paying its executives millions. I don't think they're any better than the fast fashion mills overseas, but at least those retailers pay some corporate taxes.
That explains why all the charging cables I bought at Amazon fail to work more than a week. It’s terrible that resellers can just resell things on these sites.
This is just horrible to hear about. Here I am getting most of my clothes at the goodwill and just donating whatever I don't end up wearing, and there's people who return 40% of the stuff they buy online??
goodwill is not a great choice tbh. i would suggest supporting family owned thrift shops instead.
@@BeachLookingGuy oh yeah I go to smaller places too, goodwill is a catchall term I use
I felt so terrible when I learned how goodwill treats disabled people. They would put up all these pictures of happy looking disabled people working but not tell anyone they are paying them significantly less than minimum wage
People return things because those things either don't work or they need their money back I'd rather those people get their money back then not.
Sizing within brands can often be wildly inconsistent. Also, as a plus size person my in store selection is almost nil. I do try to order from smaller brands, as those are often the ones that are the most size inclusive. Hopefully they try to resell gently handled returns.
You just admitted being fat is an issue. Do something about it. Then you don't have to order clothes like that. Always makes me mad when fat people complain about problems caused by being fat. Just make the effort and lose some weight.
Not just the size in general, but the fit in particular. It may be my size, but it doesn't fit well due to shoulder width / chest circumference etc.
Because of online shopping, brick'n'mortar shops are closing more and more. So the problem is exacerbated: less choice offline and a higher chance you'll spend a lot of time without finding anything suitable.
I work at a warehouse that does fulfillments for online orders for an international clothing chain, and i can confirm that people do buy the same thing in 3-4 sizes and return all but one. Its ridiculous.
wouldnt you do try that in a shop? i guess overwork culture nessesary to live doesnt help , but still :(
I do it all the time.
Honestly, its not my fault either. Clothing quality sucks, sizing is never consistent even with in a brand, if you don't look like the model then you have no idea about the fall and fitting, images never do justice to the actual color etc. And isn't it all cheaper than opening up a store anyway? Hell, who has the time to go to a store anyway.
That's job security for you. If your employer didn't allow the customer to try different sizes they wouldn't make the order in the 1st place.
This is actually an example of a good and useful return policy, especially if your company actually checks the returned items and puts them on for sale again, I’m not sure what the point was, like sure people are returning a lot, but nothing seems to be going to waste, it creates extra jobs, and it lets people be sure which size really fits them
@@da4127 40% of all returns are classed as damaged. Company absorbs that cost and passes it on to, ahh... everyone. Did you watch the video at all?
Even returns that aren't damaged require people to spend time assessing them for potential damage. It's hilarious how naive you are. Costs go up from this.
A big part of the problem is the quality of item. A lot of retailers and especially a lot of online retailers carry a lot of cheap poorly made generic stuff. A lot of people want the free returns because they're not sure that the product is going to be good when they get it.
5:36 Mad props to the editor. He didn't have to light your face and fingers for the light ray. But he did. Also, earlier, with the 2000s Adam shot, the tiny little knee flex before the jump made everything about the picture exiting the frame. Really great and subtle animation work. 😍
It's insane.
I'm so happy you are helping to inform people about this terrible waste. It should be illegal.
I'm also happy I have never purchased clothing online. I'd rather go to a store, and know immediately if something fits.
However I suffer from severe depression and haven't had a life in years. So I don't leave the house much.
The only thing I'v ever purchased online is car parts, and no returns.
But then, it's a privilege to just walk into a store and find clothes that fits you (I'm not overweight, I'm just super short and wear a large cup size, I can't change those things - and I'm already very lucky to have huge feet for my body height!). Of course, most people do this just for fun, not out of necessity.
Gotta be that guy….. Ralphie wasn’t the one over bundled in A Christmas Story. That was his kid brother Randy
Not a huge Amazon fan but for the sakeof accuracy...Lead an Amazon CRETs department. The process is to inspect every single return by opening the box and looking at it. The only thing not inspected is matresses because we can't resell them by law. Everything that passes the inspection is repackaged and an unique LPN is put onto it for reduced price resell through wharehouse deals. If it fails inspection it depends how baddly on what happens. It's either donated, liquidated, destroyed, or repaired. Most the failures are due to shit stains on the pants, food explosions in microwaves, open food, broken/defective parts, or something else along those lines. Underwear is even resold as long as the hygene strip is in tact and no staining is present. I'll admit we liquidated and distroyed more than we donated but a majority of units processed were put back on the shelves (Though not all buildings followed the correct standards so could have been different at other locations but for our building at least a majority of units were captured for discounted resale). Pee bottles were delivery drivers only, not FC workers (except for the ones that do it intentionally just to be assholes..). Agree with the other points though, none of it is ACTUALLY free.
This is wild. I go to JC Penny like twice a year and do my clothes shopping. I try everything on. My wife just buys shit online all the time. She has so many clothes that when they're all clean we don't have enough hangers to put them in the closet. I'm constantly asking her "does this still fit, do you still want this?" I thought she was nuts for shopping this way. I had no clue she was the normal one.
I’d argue it’s the word free that gets people drunk on “savings”. I work as a mechanic and when a customer is wavering on a repair I’ll tell them that I’m gonna throw in an extra repair for free and it always gets them to agree to everything. Little do they know I was gonna do that repair for free anyways without telling them cause it’s so quick and easy. It’s just so easy to sell people things when you can subtly convince them that they are “saving” money in one way or another.
I never knew there was this much clothing waste. Ive always got my clothes from walmart or goodwill, I could never fathom getting clothes online. Im so used to trying my clothes on in the store. And I only get new clothes every couple years when my clothes fall apart or dont fit anymore. Clothes are so expensive lol I wish I had the kind of money to be able to get them whenever I wanted. This is depressing news to learn about
That overpriced stuff is often cheaply made because of fast fashion. Things that will last are also expensive.
When I was a kid, parents sewed clothes to save money. Now? Good luck finding a fabric store. Now you get your sewing supplies at craft stores, Walmart, Target, or online. And given what we've just discovered, might as well keep the stuff even if it's wrong and make some use of it.
Speaking as someone who visits thrift shops frequently, you'd be shocked by the gems you can find. I recently found myself an Indochino blazer for $10 at a Goodwill, and this thing retails for $400+ online. Plus it fits me fairly well for something I just found on accident!