Keep it!

When the pandemic hit two years ago, we got a sense that things would be changing in our lifestyles, our schools, houses of worship, and workplaces, but it seems like every day, there is news of something we never dreamed we'd live long enough to see.

So here's the latest: Some of the big stores are thinking about just paying you not to bring back unwanted items!

You read that right. They call it "unwanted inventory levels," and that means that stores and their warehouses are packed to the gills with last year's t-shirts, unwanted Bill O'Reilly books*, luggage, NASCAR window decals, mens' lined slippers, mens' unlined slippers, shoes with heels that light up, springform cake pans, ventriloquist dummies, knee pads, shoulder pads, scratch pads, blank cassette tapes, and I don't know what-all else. 

And you know what? They don't have room for it if you return it! 

So, mix in the price of fuel to deliver all this stuff, and the supply chain problems, and some major retailers are about to say, it's costing us a ton of money to store this unwanted flotsam and jetsam, so just keep your doggone reversible down vest with a thermometer hanging from the zipper!

It times like these, I like to turn to people like Burt Flickinger, who's a retail expert and managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group, as you all know. Burt says, "It would be a smart strategic initiative. Retailers are stuck with excess inventory of unprecedented levels. They can't afford to take back even more of it."

Returned merchandise is handled in a variety of ways. If it's in good condition, the store will likely slap a new price sticker on it and put it back on the shelf.

If it's damaged or not working, they can refurbish them and sell them at a reduced price or dump them through foreign liquidators for sale in sale in Europe, Canada or Mexico.

But - "Given the situation at the ports and the container shortages, sending product overseas isn't really an option," Flickinger points out. 

The last option is to sell all their returned items to third party firms who get rid of everything for them.

No matter which option a company goes with, it brings on additional costs for the retailers.

Flickinger again: "For every dollar in sales, a retailer's net profit is between a cent to five cents. With returns, for every dollar in returned merchandise, it costs a retailer between 15 cents to 30 cents to handle it."

There is a company called goTRG, whose business it is to process returned items for WalMart, Amazon, and Lowes. Their chief operating officer is Steve Rop, and he is the one promoting the option for retailers to address returns while avoiding more product bloat by considering 'returnless return.'

Rop's company handles over 100 million returned items a year, so he knows a little about the crowded back room.

For now, he says that stores are cutting prices way back on a lot of items to get the warehouses emptied, but adds that there is an odd effect to this:

"They're already discounting in stores to clear out products but, when there's heavy discounting, buyer's remorse goes up. People are tempted to buy a lot, only to return it later," he said.

This keep-it policy actually began several years ago with Amazon. I can tell you this: I bought a hose reel from them and used it exactly twice before it broke into several large pieces of plastic and showered me thoroughly with Baltimore's finest tap water.  As soon as I toweled off a bit, I called Amazon, and they told me to keep the reel and they would credit me.

I wonder to this day how they knew that my hose reel did, in fact, fall to pieces. I guess I sound very trustworthy when I'm damp.

*ALL O'Reilly books are unwanted.