I recently purchased a large order from Amazon (many of all the same item). It was very poorly packed and every item in the box was completely destroyed except for three items which were damaged but still usable. Now, as they are Amazon, they immediately replaced the entire order and paid for me to ship the destroyed and damaged items back to them so everything’s all good there. But I was really surprised when I noticed this a few days later:

Click it to make it bigger.

They are reselling the damaged items that I returned to them. At a discount because they are damaged, obviously. But still selling them.

And, at first, it was like, really? Amazon resells damaged merchandise that gets returned to them? Aren’t they too good for that?

But then it was like OF COURSE they do.

Because I do that as a seller. You probably do too. It’s just common sense. If an item gets broken or returned and is still salable, well you’d just be leaving money lying around to NOT still try to get something for it. It’s be dumb not to.

I guess it just never occurred to me that Amazon thought like that. I seem to think of them as this giant corporate money machine that just throws money at their problems until the customer is happy. I resell returned merchandise because I need every last bit of meat from that bone… I always figured Amazon ate well enough that they didn’t worry about the little scraps.

Has Amazon always done this or is this a new practice? I have no idea but it’s the first time that I’ve noticed it. But, in a way, I find it comforting to know that one of the biggest fish in the sea is playing the game the same as us little guys.

Even when you’re making millions of dollars a second, I guess nickel and dime-ing is just part of running a business.