Will Walmart ever fail?

[abefroman329]

Yeah, I usually have much better luck with places that employ their own drivers, even the chains like Pizza Hut and Domino's. Our Pizza Hut's no-contact delivery during the worst of the pandemic was like clockwork–they sat the pizza on the brick wall surrounding our porch (there's a perfectly pizza-box-sized column on either side of the sidewalk), rang the bell, and then by the time I got to the door they'd be standing by their car. When I got the pizza they'd wave and get into their car to leave.

I have a marked disdain for leaving people's food on the ground, unless there's just no other option. I'll use a chair on the porch, a column like what's on your porch, anything I can find. If it's not immediately visible from the door, I'll send a picture so they can find it. There's a big difference between being "a" pizza guy, vs. being "the" pizza guy. The kids that work the rush hour are doing it for beer money. I'm doing it for a living.

For a time, Domino's (and maybe Papa John's as well) were providing these little cardboard stands so that the food was being left an inch or two above the ground, rather than on the ground.

There's only one door to our townhouse, and there's a storm door that opens outwards.  Close to 100% of the time, they'll leave the food in a place where I can't open the door without knocking over/shoving the food out of the way.

[kalvado]

I've mentioned before in other threads that I have a problem with DoorDash drivers who assume the "order delivered" message on the phone is sufficient notice that the food is there. For me, it's not. My wife often orders the food and then takes a nap (with her phone on silent of course) and I'm the one responsible for getting the food inside and waking her up when it gets there. We put in the order notes specifically to ring the bell but it's a crapshoot whether they actually do it or not.

While I don't drive for doorcrash (I work for a regional chain), I personally pay close attention to instructions like that. But I'm also the oldest person in the store, and I suspect a lot of the kids don't. Deliveries like this, I'll usually sit there for a minute to make sure you get your stuff, unless you acknowledged my text. If it's super cold outside, I'll send the text when I'm a block or so away, so your food doesn't sit out in the cold too long.

I do instacart orders for groceries. There is an instruction for the driver to pull into our driveway and leave the groceries at our side door. Total of 3 feet of distance from the driveway to the door.

About 1/3 of the time, the delivery person will pull up on the street and carry everything the 50ish feet to the front door. I tried to make it easier for them..

Backing up into the street may be a hassle if you don't do it too often.

[NWI_Irish96]

I've mentioned before in other threads that I have a problem with DoorDash drivers who assume the "order delivered" message on the phone is sufficient notice that the food is there. For me, it's not. My wife often orders the food and then takes a nap (with her phone on silent of course) and I'm the one responsible for getting the food inside and waking her up when it gets there. We put in the order notes specifically to ring the bell but it's a crapshoot whether they actually do it or not.

While I don't drive for doorcrash (I work for a regional chain), I personally pay close attention to instructions like that. But I'm also the oldest person in the store, and I suspect a lot of the kids don't. Deliveries like this, I'll usually sit there for a minute to make sure you get your stuff, unless you acknowledged my text. If it's super cold outside, I'll send the text when I'm a block or so away, so your food doesn't sit out in the cold too long.

I do instacart orders for groceries. There is an instruction for the driver to pull into our driveway and leave the groceries at our side door. Total of 3 feet of distance from the driveway to the door.

About 1/3 of the time, the delivery person will pull up on the street and carry everything the 50ish feet to the front door. I tried to make it easier for them..

Backing up into the street may be a hassle if you don't do it too often.

I'm 250 feet from a dead end. Not talking 4-lane highway traffic here.

[kalvado]

I've mentioned before in other threads that I have a problem with DoorDash drivers who assume the "order delivered" message on the phone is sufficient notice that the food is there. For me, it's not. My wife often orders the food and then takes a nap (with her phone on silent of course) and I'm the one responsible for getting the food inside and waking her up when it gets there. We put in the order notes specifically to ring the bell but it's a crapshoot whether they actually do it or not.

While I don't drive for doorcrash (I work for a regional chain), I personally pay close attention to instructions like that. But I'm also the oldest person in the store, and I suspect a lot of the kids don't. Deliveries like this, I'll usually sit there for a minute to make sure you get your stuff, unless you acknowledged my text. If it's super cold outside, I'll send the text when I'm a block or so away, so your food doesn't sit out in the cold too long.

I do instacart orders for groceries. There is an instruction for the driver to pull into our driveway and leave the groceries at our side door. Total of 3 feet of distance from the driveway to the door.

About 1/3 of the time, the delivery person will pull up on the street and carry everything the 50ish feet to the front door. I tried to make it easier for them..

Backing up into the street may be a hassle if you don't do it too often.

I'm 250 feet from a dead end. Not talking 4-lane highway traffic here.

And 1 out of 3 drivers don't realize that. Seems about right

[NWI_Irish96]

I've mentioned before in other threads that I have a problem with DoorDash drivers who assume the "order delivered" message on the phone is sufficient notice that the food is there. For me, it's not. My wife often orders the food and then takes a nap (with her phone on silent of course) and I'm the one responsible for getting the food inside and waking her up when it gets there. We put in the order notes specifically to ring the bell but it's a crapshoot whether they actually do it or not.

While I don't drive for doorcrash (I work for a regional chain), I personally pay close attention to instructions like that. But I'm also the oldest person in the store, and I suspect a lot of the kids don't. Deliveries like this, I'll usually sit there for a minute to make sure you get your stuff, unless you acknowledged my text. If it's super cold outside, I'll send the text when I'm a block or so away, so your food doesn't sit out in the cold too long.

I do instacart orders for groceries. There is an instruction for the driver to pull into our driveway and leave the groceries at our side door. Total of 3 feet of distance from the driveway to the door.

About 1/3 of the time, the delivery person will pull up on the street and carry everything the 50ish feet to the front door. I tried to make it easier for them..

Backing up into the street may be a hassle if you don't do it too often.

I'm 250 feet from a dead end. Not talking 4-lane highway traffic here.

And 1 out of 3 drivers don't realize that. Seems about right

From the number of cars that go up to the end of the street, get confused, turn around and go back down the street, they can't read the DEAD END sign at the end of the block either.

[zachary_amaryllis]

I've mentioned before in other threads that I have a problem with DoorDash drivers who assume the "order delivered" message on the phone is sufficient notice that the food is there. For me, it's not. My wife often orders the food and then takes a nap (with her phone on silent of course) and I'm the one responsible for getting the food inside and waking her up when it gets there. We put in the order notes specifically to ring the bell but it's a crapshoot whether they actually do it or not.

While I don't drive for doorcrash (I work for a regional chain), I personally pay close attention to instructions like that. But I'm also the oldest person in the store, and I suspect a lot of the kids don't. Deliveries like this, I'll usually sit there for a minute to make sure you get your stuff, unless you acknowledged my text. If it's super cold outside, I'll send the text when I'm a block or so away, so your food doesn't sit out in the cold too long.

I do instacart orders for groceries. There is an instruction for the driver to pull into our driveway and leave the groceries at our side door. Total of 3 feet of distance from the driveway to the door.

About 1/3 of the time, the delivery person will pull up on the street and carry everything the 50ish feet to the front door. I tried to make it easier for them..

Attention to details like that (among other details) is why I out-earn most of the other drivers in tips, as well. I am constantly complimented by customers, from 'you're the only one who's ever been able to find this place', to 'you're the first one to follow (whatever odd instruction)'

[nexus73]

The answer is yes.  If nothing else, proton decay will make sure everything in this universe quits existing...LOL!

Rick

[Max Rockatansky]

The answer is yes.  If nothing else, proton decay will make sure everything in this universe quits existing...LOL!

Rick

That depends, do you believe the universe will end in the Big Rip or Big Crunch?  If it is the latter then in theory the entirety of time could repeat on an endless loop.  That's assuming there aren't multiple universes which we can't see beyond the Cosmic Horizon. 

[kalvado]

The answer is yes.  If nothing else, proton decay will make sure everything in this universe quits existing...LOL!

Rick

In a shorter term, I believe GE was the last company of original Dow index list. While it still exists, it is pushed off the index. The rest of the list is either out of business, absorbed into bigger companies, or whatnot.

[tchafe1978]

Walmart can't fail. At least for 20 years or so. I work there and am 21 years into a life sentence, so it has to last at least until I can retire, if I ever can retire.

[Bruce]

Gig apps like DoorDash and Instacart have awful backend systems. For quite a few orders, especially those placed through the merchant, the customer instructions will simply get lost in the system and never show up on the driver's side. Or if they do show up, it's only AFTER they press "Arrived and parked", as is the case with Instacart most of the time.

There's also the issue of some drivers being unable to read English instructions, but that's a whole other issue.

[hbelkins]

Walmart has a distinct advantage over Amazon where returns are concerned. You can return an item purchased from their Web site to any store, even if the item is available online only.

Amazon requires that you drop an item off at a UPS Store if you want free shipping, or pay $5.99 to return an item if you use the standard UPS drop off or pickup service. And they're using UPS for returns even though the item was originally shipped by USPS.

The nearest UPS store is at least an hour away and it would cost more in gas and time to go there to drop the item off to take advantage of free shipping on returns.

[CtrlAltDel]

Walmart has a distinct advantage over Amazon where returns are concerned. You can return an item purchased from their Web site to any store, even if the item is available online only.

Amazon requires that you drop an item off at a UPS Store if you want free shipping, or pay $5.99 to return an item if you use the standard UPS drop off or pickup service. And they're using UPS for returns even though the item was originally shipped by USPS.

The nearest UPS store is at least an hour away and it would cost more in gas and time to go there to drop the item off to take advantage of free shipping on returns.

It's not an option for everyone, but I think you can also drop them off at a Kohl's.

[webny99]

Walmart has a distinct advantage over Amazon where returns are concerned. You can return an item purchased from their Web site to any store, even if the item is available online only.

Amazon requires that you drop an item off at a UPS Store if you want free shipping, or pay $5.99 to return an item if you use the standard UPS drop off or pickup service. And they're using UPS for returns even though the item was originally shipped by USPS.

The nearest UPS store is at least an hour away and it would cost more in gas and time to go there to drop the item off to take advantage of free shipping on returns.

A few things on this:

1. $5.99 is relatively inexpensive to ship something. Even anyone with an account with UPS is going to be paying more than that to ship and pay themselves.

2. Most areas that lack UPS stores also lack Walmart stores. There's probably very few parts of the country that have one or more Walmart stores nearby but no UPS stores to be found.

3. Making it very easy to return items is great from a customer service perspective, but it can also encourage returns, which are costly and time-consuming. That's especially true for an online business like Amazon, where customers can't see/touch/try on items before purchasing, and can't return to a service desk where they can be re-checked in immediately. If they make the return process too easy, it will happen more often, and that hurts their bottom line.

[kphoger]

1. $5.99 is relatively inexpensive to ship something. Even anyone with an account with UPS is going to be paying more than that to ship and pay themselves.

Meanwhile, dropping it off at the customer service desk next time you're at Wal-Mart is free.  $5.99 might not break the bank, but it's definitely an advantage to have returns handled for free.

2. Most areas that lack UPS stores also lack Walmart stores. There's probably very few parts of the country that have one or more Walmart stores nearby but no UPS stores to be found.

It's still an extra place to go.  But, having said that...

HB, you might also check for a "UPS Authorized Shipping Provider" closer to where you live.  It isn't just UPS Store locations that can accept returns.  The Amazon returns website states "return the item(s) to any UPS drop-off point [emphasis mine]".  https://www.ups.com/dropoff/

3. Making it very easy to return items is great from a customer service perspective, but it can also encourage returns, which are costly and time-consuming. That's especially true for an online business like Amazon, where customers can't see/touch/try on items before purchasing, and can't return to a service desk where they can be re-checked in immediately. If they make the return process too easy, it will happen more often, and that hurts their bottom line.

I don't think he meant it was an advantage for Wal-Mart, but rather that it's an advantage for the customer.

[webny99]

I don't think he meant it was an advantage for Wal-Mart, but rather that it's an advantage for the customer.

Well, that's just it. Customers may find it easier to do returns with Walmart than Amazon, but returns are something both companies want to avoid to begin with. So from Amazon's perspective, any return that can be charged freight or avoided altogether is their advantage, not Walmart's.

[kphoger]

By the way, I'm quite familiar with the financial drain that returns are on a company.  For about five or six years, I worked in the returns warehouse for a publishing company.  You could say that my entire department was a financial drain on the company–except that a returns policy is part of the agreements made with distributers/customers, so making returns a difficult ordeal would actually hinder business.

Example.  Part of the agreement we had with Wal-Mart's distributor was to guarantee that our NYT best-selling series would be 'in stock' for them.  That distributor would buy, say, $100,000 worth of product from us, put Wal-Mart price labels on said product, sell $20,000 worth of it, then return the other $80,000 worth and order another $100,000 worth.  This meant several things for us as a business.  First, it meant that we had to either (a) go through the labor-intensive process of manually removing the price tags in order to make the returns saleable to other stores, or (b) automatically consider all stickered returns as 'damaged'.  Secondly, no matter which of the aforementioned options we chose, we ended up with a huge glut of product–saleable but nonetheless accumulating in the warehouse if (a), or not saleable if (b).  Thirdly, because of that, pallets and pallets' worth of returned product just kept piling up, to the point that we ended up having to buy another warehouse off-site.  Lastly, even with that, it still ended up being the most profitable solution to send trucks full of returned product from Chicago to Tennessee in order to be shredded into pulp–and to fly an employee down there and back, just to watch it happen, in order to ensure the recycler wasn't turning around and selling the product out from under us instead of actually shredding it (which did happen).

Another fun aspect of doing business with said distributor is that, again as part of their business agreement with us, they employed a process called 'reverse credit'.  This meant that they would purchase new product with a credit amount that they determined was appropriate based on what they returned to us.  And the way they determined that credit amount was–supposedly–to take the average weight of all the product they bought from us, extrapolate that amount to be an average dollar amount per pallet of product, and then simply count how many pallets they shipped us.  And, wouldn't you know it, that number just happened to come to precisely $10,000 per pallet.  Our job was then to go through it all, piece by piece, scan them into the system, and calculate how much our total deviated from theirs.  Then we sent that info over to accounting to hash it out with the customer.  And, because we're talking about a NYT best-selling book series, this was a daily-to-weekly occurrence.

But what was the alternative to the scenario I just described?  Not doing business with the largest retailer in the nation?  Well, that isn't exactly a winning business model either.  Wal-Mart is a large enough company, that it can dictate the rules to everyone it works with, knowing full well that hardly anyone will be willing to say no.

[webny99]

By the way, I'm quite familiar with the financial drain that returns are on a company.  For about five or six years, I worked in the returns warehouse ...

I work in returns too, but not full-time; quite the opposite, in fact. It's one of those things where my part of the process is almost permanently backlogged because I never seem to get to it and don't have to get to it on any given day. But eventually, it has to be done. So I know plenty about returns, too, and that's maybe partly why I find them so annoying.
But still, 

Example.  Part of the agreement we had with Wal-Mart's distributor was to guarantee that our NYT best-selling series would be 'in stock' for them.  That distributor would buy, say, $100,000 worth of product from us, put Wal-Mart price labels on said product, sell $20,000 worth of it, then return the other $80,000 worth and order another $100,000 worth.  This meant several things for us as a business.  First, it meant that we had to either (a) go through the labor-intensive process of manually removing the price tags in order to make the returns saleable to other stores, or (b) automatically consider all stickered returns as 'damaged'.  Secondly, no matter which of the aforementioned options we chose, we ended up with a huge glut of product–saleable but nonetheless accumulating in the warehouse if (a), or not saleable if (b).  Thirdly, because of that, pallets and pallets' worth of returned product just kept piling up, to the point that we ended up having to buy another warehouse off-site.  Lastly, even with that, it still ended up being the most profitable solution to send trucks full of returned product from Chicago to Tennessee in order to be shredded into pulp–and to fly an employee down there and back, just to watch it happen, in order to ensure the recycler wasn't turning around and selling the product out from under us instead of actually shredding it (which did happen).

What!?!? That's fascinating, but if they insisted on returning that much product, why wouldn't you just resend them what they returned last time?

[hbelkins]

When I searched for the nearest UPS stores, naturally Richmond and Winchester are the closest, but they're an hour away. The closest one to the east of me is Pikeville. I don't travel to any of these areas on a frequent basis. OTOH, I'm within a mile of Walmart three days out of every week.

The last time I returned an item to Amazon, it was because the item was defective and didn't work. That was a free return and I had to use UPS, and I dropped the item in a mailbox-like drop box in Morehead because I was already there for an optometrist appointment.

In this instance, I would be returning the item unopened because it's no longer needed. We had a cat with some aggressive behavioral issues, so I ordered a Feliway starter kit. Unfortunately, the cat got sick and died so we never opened the Feliway.

Amazon was cheaper than Walmart for the purchase. In retrospect I should have ordered it from Walmart and I could have dropped it off for a return without charge.

2. Most areas that lack UPS stores also lack Walmart stores. There's probably very few parts of the country that have one or more Walmart stores nearby but no UPS stores to be found.

It's still an extra place to go.  But, having said that...

HB, you might also check for a "UPS Authorized Shipping Provider" closer to where you live.  It isn't just UPS Store locations that can accept returns.  The Amazon returns website states "return the item(s) to any UPS drop-off point [emphasis mine]".  https://www.ups.com/dropoff/

What I found was you get the return label free if you take it to a UPS Store, but have to pay the $5.99 if you take it to an authorized dropoff point. Maybe that was just in the app; I may need to take a look on the Web site to see if it differs.

The UPS truck runs nearly daily at my office so it seems like the office is a de facto drop point.

[kphoger]

What!?!? That's fascinating, but if they insisted on returning that much product, why wouldn't you just resend them what they returned last time?

We may have eventually come to that, I can't remember for sure, but I don't think so.  But shipping was a different department.

Our usual returns procedure, after processing the items, was to sort and collect them into what was basically the opposite of pick staging, until such time as we reached a case-quantity of a given item–at which point we would seal up the box and slap a label on it.  Then we would send the filled boxes to the picking end of the warehouse, and those guys would put them on the pallets with the never-opened cases for future pick orders.  However, due to the volume, the best-selling series was handled differently:  we brick-piled them loose on pallets until the pallet reached 1120 books, then put angle-board on the edges, tossed a pallet-topper on top, and stretch-wrapped it as one big pallet-sized case-quantity.  Basically, we had so much new product on hand, due to the up-front 'in stock' agreement, that I don't think we ever needed to resell the returns back to them:  our warehouse would numerically never run out of new stock.

Bear in mind that this was a huge boon to the business.  Before that series (before I got there), shipping and receiving were all handled out of one warehouse with just four docks.  Most similar businesses I'm familiar with (Christian publishing houses) are fairly small operations in the physical sense, so hitting the NYT best-selling list puts a business like that into a whole other level.  In fact, some of them invest so much money into the infrastructure required to support the sales volume that, when the bubble bursts on that specific product, they can no longer survive.  If I remember correctly, that's part of the reason Multnomah Publishers was bought by Random House:  the Prayer of Jabez hype caused them to skyrocket so far and so fast that they could no longer afford their operations after Prayer of Jabez sales dropped off.

[Bruce]

Amazon also allows free returns from its own stores, which are slowly expanding into more and more cities. Go stores, Fresh stores, their Pickup Hubs, or their soon-to-be-defunct 4-star and Books outlets.

[Scott5114]

By the way, I'm quite familiar with the financial drain that returns are on a company.  For about five or six years, I worked in the returns warehouse for a publishing company. [...]

Wow, if there was any question as to how print media is doing in the 21st century, there's your answer.

I'm sure it all gets recycled, at least, but the practice of pulping perfectly good books due to economic concerns has never sat well with me. Surely there's enough libraries in this country that would love to have them... (Granted, I'm sure most of these have already been purchased by a library, or else are not library-quality subject matter, but still.)

But what was the alternative to the scenario I just described?  Not doing business with the largest retailer in the nation?  Well, that isn't exactly a winning business model either.  Wal-Mart is a large enough company, that it can dictate the rules to everyone it works with, knowing full well that hardly anyone will be willing to say no.

It really depends on the business's target market, how well it matches up with Walmart's, and whether the expected return is worth the hassle of dealing with Walmart's business practices. In my case, I've analyzed it a couple times and always come to the conclusion not to bother. My playing cards sell for $22.99 for a 2-deck set; there's a market for cards at that price point for sure (some of my competitors sell for as high as $31), but your average Walmart customer is going to go for the Bicycles at $1.99 a pack. Given that, even spending the time to make an overture to Walmart to begin the process of being evaluated as a supplier has a negative expected value to me.

It's an unfortunate truth in this country how much large businesses can throw their weight around when dealing with smaller suppliers. Walmart is not alone in this regard; I've heard stories of Disney, the Trump Organization, etc. taking their sweet time paying invoices because, well, you need the money more than The Mouse needs you as a supplier, so who holds the power there? I personally had Amazon scam me out of over $100 worth of product simply because they absolutely refused to engage with me on any level other than form letters. I cut business ties with them after that. I don't make anywhere near enough money to be able to afford that happening more than once.

Amazon also allows free returns from its own stores, which are slowly expanding into more and more cities. Go stores, Fresh stores, their Pickup Hubs, or their soon-to-be-defunct 4-star and Books outlets.

I suspect it will be a cold day in hell before Bozos opens any of those in Pikeville, Kentucky.

[SectorZ]

By the way, I'm quite familiar with the financial drain that returns are on a company.  For about five or six years, I worked in the returns warehouse for a publishing company.  You could say that my entire department was a financial drain on the company–except that a returns policy is part of the agreements made with distributers/customers, so making returns a difficult ordeal would actually hinder business.

Example.  Part of the agreement we had with Wal-Mart's distributor was to guarantee that our NYT best-selling series would be 'in stock' for them.  That distributor would buy, say, $100,000 worth of product from us, put Wal-Mart price labels on said product, sell $20,000 worth of it, then return the other $80,000 worth and order another $100,000 worth.  This meant several things for us as a business.  First, it meant that we had to either (a) go through the labor-intensive process of manually removing the price tags in order to make the returns saleable to other stores, or (b) automatically consider all stickered returns as 'damaged'.  Secondly, no matter which of the aforementioned options we chose, we ended up with a huge glut of product–saleable but nonetheless accumulating in the warehouse if (a), or not saleable if (b).  Thirdly, because of that, pallets and pallets' worth of returned product just kept piling up, to the point that we ended up having to buy another warehouse off-site.  Lastly, even with that, it still ended up being the most profitable solution to send trucks full of returned product from Chicago to Tennessee in order to be shredded into pulp–and to fly an employee down there and back, just to watch it happen, in order to ensure the recycler wasn't turning around and selling the product out from under us instead of actually shredding it (which did happen).

Another fun aspect of doing business with said distributor is that, again as part of their business agreement with us, they employed a process called 'reverse credit'.  This meant that they would purchase new product with a credit amount that they determined was appropriate based on what they returned to us.  And the way they determined that credit amount was–supposedly–to take the average weight of all the product they bought from us, extrapolate that amount to be an average dollar amount per pallet of product, and then simply count how many pallets they shipped us.  And, wouldn't you know it, that number just happened to come to precisely $10,000 per pallet.  Our job was then to go through it all, piece by piece, scan them into the system, and calculate how much our total deviated from theirs.  Then we sent that info over to accounting to hash it out with the customer.  And, because we're talking about a NYT best-selling book series, this was a daily-to-weekly occurrence.

But what was the alternative to the scenario I just described?  Not doing business with the largest retailer in the nation?  Well, that isn't exactly a winning business model either.  Wal-Mart is a large enough company, that it can dictate the rules to everyone it works with, knowing full well that hardly anyone will be willing to say no.

Well at least we know Walmart has lapped the federal government as the USA's most ineffective bureaucracy.

I know Sam Walton wanted things done his way, but I imagine this wasn't quite what he dreamed up 60 years ago.

[kphoger]

I'm sure it all gets recycled, at least, but the practice of pulping perfectly good books due to economic concerns has never sat well with me. Surely there's enough libraries in this country that would love to have them... (Granted, I'm sure most of these have already been purchased by a library, or else are not library-quality subject matter, but still.)

Believe you me, it didn't sit well with the people making that decision either.  People who produce books for a living because they love books.  People who produce books they believe for religious reasons need to make it into the hands of people in order to improve their lives.  But we literally couldn't even give them away, we had so many on hand.

[Scott5114]

I'm sure it all gets recycled, at least, but the practice of pulping perfectly good books due to economic concerns has never sat well with me. Surely there's enough libraries in this country that would love to have them... (Granted, I'm sure most of these have already been purchased by a library, or else are not library-quality subject matter, but still.)

Believe you me, it didn't sit well with the people making that decision either.  People who produce books for a living because they love books.  People who produce books they believe for religious reasons need to make it into the hands of people in order to improve their lives.  But we literally couldn't even give them away, we had so many on hand.

One wonders how much purported economic activity in this country is that sort of thing. Things being produced, shipped somewhere, shipped back, destroyed, all without ever being used for their intended purpose. Trees killed, fuel burned, simply because not doing so negatively affects some line item on a report somewhere.

And then the corporations have the gall to insist that the everyday consumer should be the one to make sacrifices when it comes to the environment.