Magida El Timani often shops on Amazon and was shocked to learn that the giant online retailer tossed out a backpack returned by Marketplace producers. Months on from the investigation, some returns were still in Amazon warehouses or in transit, while a few travelled to some unexpected destinations, including a backpack that Amazon sent to landfill. Of the 12 items returned, it appears only four were resold by Amazon to new customers at the time this story was published. And a printer clocked over 1,000 kilometres while circling around southern Ontario. Marketplace returned toy blocks that travelled over 950 kilometres before reaching a new customer in Quebec. Many returns took a circuitous route, often covering several hundreds - sometimes even thousands - of kilometres to reach their final destination. The trackers became a guide into the secretive world of e-commerce returns. Marketplace teamed up with the Basel Action Network, a non-profit Seattle-based environmental organization that specializes in tracking waste and harmful products around the world. To further investigate where all those online returns end up, Marketplace purchased a dozen products off Amazon's website - a faux leather backpack, overalls, a printer, coffee maker, a small tent, children's toys and a few other household items - and sent each back to Amazon just as they were received but with a GPS tracker hidden inside.Ī Marketplace investigation into Amazon returns found that some of them don't make it back to the company's virtual shelves at all. That number drops to less than ten per cent for merchandise bought at bricks and mortar stores. Kevin Lyons, an associate professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who specializes in supply chain management and environmental policy, says that 30 to 40 per cent of all online purchases are sent back. Secret GPS trackers and one backpack's journey She started buying more on the platform after the coronavirus pandemic hit, and she's not alone.Į-commerce sales have more than doubled in Canada in recent months. Jain likes the convenience of online shopping but worries about Amazon's carbon footprint. She worries about the environmental impact of online shopping. WATCH | CBC Marketplace found out where some Amazon returns really go:Įco-blogger Meera Jain was extremely disappointed that some Amazon returns are being shredded for recycling, or sent to landfill. "Like, nothing 100 per cent goes into recycling. "Some of it will go into landfill," said the operations manager. It's incredible," said the operations manager.ĬBC News is concealing her identity because both this company and others that help Amazon dispose of or resell its online returns are afraid they'll lose their contracts if they speak publicly. It is so - it's like cockroaches, it multiplies. During that meeting, a representative revealed they get "tons and tons of Amazon returns," and that every week their facility breaks apart and shreds at least one tractor-trailer load of Amazon returns, sometimes even up to three to five truckloads. Marketplace journalists posing as potential new clients went undercover for a tour at a Toronto e-waste recycling and product destruction facility with hidden cameras. Experts say hundreds of thousands of returns don't end up back on the e-commerce giant's website for resale, as customers might think. But it may surprise consumers to learn what can actually happen to all those unwanted items.Ī Marketplace investigation into Amazon Canada has found that perfectly good items are being liquidated by the truckload - and even destroyed or sent to landfill.
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It's safe to say that online shoppers like the promise of easy - and even better, free - returns.