The Island of Misfit Toys

June 5, 2006 4:37 AM

Where do electronic items returned to places like Best Buy go?

I'm going to return a defective mp3 player to Best Buy tonight, and it got me wondering about where it would end up. Although it's not usable, I'm sure plenty of usable stuff gets returned, too.

Now, even though all the accessories are in the box, there's no way Best Buy could get all this stuff back in the package correctly to sell it again.

So (preferably people who've worked in stores like Best Buy), what happens? Do all of the items get shipped back to the manufacturers? Are there explanations attached? Are all different products packaged up together to be sorted through by some third party? Does it all just end up in the trash?

(I guess I'd most like to hear that all of the manufacturers get their products back so they can investigate their defects, but I'm a little too cynical to believe that actually happens.)

posted by landtuna to shopping (19 comments total)

I don't work at Best Buy but I always see packages sealed up with tape or sometimes in a special container and sold at a discount as an open box item.
posted by substrate at 4:58 AM on June 5, 2006

I purchased a digital camera as an open box return that had a 20% discount. It was cleary labelled and fuly disclosed. Other than the box being opened, all internal packaging had not been opened. Full store and manufactures warranties were intact.

I think some open box (working) returns are sold to discounters / liquidation warehouses. I'll see various electronics available there with a hefty discount (40-50%), box obviously open with missing manuals, scuffs and scrapes on the item etc. Typically these stores will not offer any warranty, may offer store credit return within 10 days, usually the manufacturer's warranty is still in effect but not always.
posted by Mahogne at 5:13 AM on June 5, 2006

A long time ago, they were re-shrinkwrapped and sold as new. I know at least 10 people who can tell tales as to why they'd never shop there again because they purchased something "new" only to find it so very obviously been opened and used prior. One guy even found a tape in his VCR! That practice seems to have gone down in the last ten years or so, though and now they sell them as returns.
posted by Spoonman at 5:30 AM on June 5, 2006

Note that my interest is more in the defect items. (It doesn't seem that there are enough discounted returned items to account for the amount of actual returns that occur, though.)
posted by landtuna at 5:35 AM on June 5, 2006

Flea markets apparently.
posted by fire&wings at 5:39 AM on June 5, 2006

Sometimes, if it faulty it is sent back to the manufacturer. They are then fixed and resold as remanufactured. A lot of outlet stores specialize in selling remanufactured electronics.
posted by JJ86 at 6:04 AM on June 5, 2006

My dad used to pick up the trash containers from stores like this. I used to get all kinds of stuff for free because it was just sitting on top of the trash, being thrown out......

Of course, that was 20 years ago.
posted by quibx at 6:08 AM on June 5, 2006

In the IdleTech program I was hired into in 2003, traded-in electronics were sold on eBay and sent to flea markets and things. We only took working electronics, and people were always angry to find out their ten-year-old VCR would only net them a dollar. IdleTech was a trial program and was tested in the Chicagoland area - I was only there as holiday help so I have no idea what became of the program.
posted by IndigoRain at 6:50 AM on June 5, 2006

quibx writes "My dad used to pick up the trash containers from stores like this. I used to get all kinds of stuff for free because it was just sitting on top of the trash, being thrown out....."

I've seen lots of cheaper (say sub $200 retail) electronic goods in retailers dumpters. Sears just throws out hand tools that are returned/replaced under their lifetime warranty program. You can build up a fairly good if spotty handtool collection by dumpter diving for these defective tools and then returning the defect tool for a brand new replacement.
posted by Mitheral at 7:56 AM on June 5, 2006

All the items you buy through a retailer come from a manufacturer/distributor. There's always a sales contract which dictates how returns are handled. The retailer usually has the choice to return the item and demand a refund or if they think they can still get money for the item they can do a "open item" sale. They might do the latter if the sales contract stipulates all returns must be defective as opposed to just open.

The manufacturer has a few outlets to get rid of the items that are returned but are either fine or can be repaired cheaply. They can sell them wholesale refurbished, sell them to employees, or just destroy them if they aren't worth keeping in storage and insuring. You can see a lot of these refurbs or old inventory at places like woot.com or buy.com.
posted by skallas at 8:40 AM on June 5, 2006

As a sales drone, I don't know what happens to defective items. From my perspective, they are "Devo'd" and cease to exist.

FWIW, not all working items are returned to the sales floor. Based on the way at least one leading electronics retailer does accounting, there can be an incentive to devo working open box items rather than take the margin hit from selling them for cheap.
posted by Ptrin at 9:00 AM on June 5, 2006

DEVO = Defective, return to vendor
Some manufacturers won't let you DEVO their stuff. Some simply prefer that the store "junk it out" and destroy it in the store. Home Depot does this for power tools that are returned - they basically destroy them so that there's just worthless stuff in their dumpsters at the end of the day.
posted by Coffeemate at 11:26 AM on June 5, 2006

they basically destroy them so that there's just worthless stuff in their dumpsters at the end of the day.

Which tells you a lot about the value of the loss
posted by elpapacito at 12:17 PM on June 5, 2006

You can build up a fairly good if spotty handtool collection by dumpter diving for these defective tools and then returning the defect tool for a brand new replacement.
posted by Mitheral at 7:56 AM PST on June 5

I was with you up till there.
posted by evariste at 12:58 PM on June 5, 2006

they basically destroy them so that there's just worthless stuff in their dumpsters at the end of the day.

Well that makes sense, if you think about it. Distribution, R&D, marketing, and retailer's margin eat up most of the price of any item. Actual manufacturing cost is a very small piece of the pie, so repairing it often does not make sense. Especially on items such as chain saws or nail guns where significant effort has to be expended to make them function safely again.
posted by randomstriker at 1:04 PM on June 5, 2006

I've never worked in a retail environment, and we don't even have BestBuy in New Zealand, but I can tell you what happens to some returned goods.

I bought a scanner a few years ago, got it home and it didn't work. Then I noticed that it had a printed sheet of paper documenting the fact that it had been sold previously, was broken, then 'serviced' before being put back on the shelf. It was sold to me as a new item.

I was furious, but somewhat mollified when they gave me an upgraded model (and, as ridiculous as it might sound, a ream of paper) as a replacement.
posted by The Monkey at 7:13 PM on June 5, 2006

Look on ebay for pallet loads of DVD players etc. that have been returned. The listings all state the stuff is untested, and imply it would be working or easily repairable.
Presumably this is where at least some distributors off load the returns.
posted by bystander at 10:18 PM on June 5, 2006

Fry's Electronics resells much of it as "refurbished" even if it never leaves their store, and I know from sheer gut nerd instinct they very often pass off returned goods as new.

I hate buying their unsealed store-bagged RAM and drives there. It's always a crapshoot.

A friend who used to build systems used to hit up Fry's for "emergency" parts. We called it the "Fry's Lunchbreak", and it went like this: Go to Fry's. Buy part. Go have lunch. Take back the item and return it. Since it was the same day and often the same hour, they'd sometimes remember us and make sure we'd get good product. Sometimes we'd even go get lunch again or go for a beer or coffee, and bring it back for a third try and just cross our fingers.
posted by loquacious at 5:44 AM on June 6, 2006

I'll walk you through the chain evariste:

1. Mitheral breaks his 1/4" flat bladed craftsman screwdriver; for some reason it didn't like being shorted across a 240V 30A plug[1].


2. Mitheral takes the screwdriver back to Sears where the sales droid in hardware gives him a new one no questions asked[2] and then tosses the defective item into the trash under the till. This is probably the 3rd or 4th return at this station today because Mitheral is a hard worker who managed to sneak in just before closing.


3. evariste, a poor starving artist, dumpster dives the local mall in search of materials for his art. In the Sears dumpsters he finds the hardware department's garbage bag and fishes out Mitheral's fryed screwdriver, a cracked 13/16ths-1/2" drive socket, a 1/2" wrench with rounded edges and a 1/4" ratchet with stripped gears.


4. if evariste wasn't the fine upstanding honest citizen he is he could wait a week and then return the screwdriver, socket, wrench and ratchet to Sears and get shiny new replacements. Instead he incorporates the damaged items into his modern art sculpture which he then sells becoming world famous.

The good but spotty part addresses the fact that evariste can't control what people damage. Long term you'd have dozens of 9/16" wrenches and medium sized flat bladed screwdrivers but no No#0 Robertson's screwdrivers or 4.5mm sockets because the number of uses/abuses of those items is very low. You'd never get a complete set but you'd soon have 90% of the stuff you actually need.

[1] True story. Craftsmen flat bladed screwdrivers are amazingly tough but they kinda explode when shorted like that. Very impressive, always have a spare.
[2] Also true, this is why I love Sears for hand tools. Good luck returning a SnapOn screwdriver that is only 1/2 it's original length.
posted by Mitheral at 11:02 AM on June 6, 2006