Last June, Amazon was in the middle of the eye of the hurricane after the brand was singled out for destroying millions of products causing significant damage to the environment.
Just as reveals new research of the television channel ITV News, Amazon destroys an average of about 130 thousand products in perfect condition each week, because they were not sold at the time or because they were returned by consumers.
According to what was found in this research, these products range from books, face masks and hair dryers to high-end headphones, smart TVs and “occasional MacBooks and iPad”.
This was discovered after an investigation carried out by the aforementioned medium in collaboration with a former employee of the Amazon warehouse located in Dunfermline, in the United Kingdom, which discovered that about 130 thousand products are destroyed every week, although sometimes this figure rises to 200 thousand.
The interesting thing about the findings lies in the destination of these products marked to be destroyed, where while some electronics are sent to a waste management center located near the warehouse, others, as found, are sent to landfills, which which can naturally cause a significant impact on the environment.
Faced with these accusations, Amazon assured a medium spanish, that these products are not sent to landfills.
“Our priority is to resell, donate to charities or recycle any unsold product. No items are sent to landfills in the UK, as a last resort such items are sent to power generation programs, but we are working hard to reduce this amount to zero. “
With this in mind, the brand has decided to make its initiatives around the solutions to this problem more evident and extensive, Amazon will launch a new program in Spain, a market in which companies that sell through the website of the e-giant -Commerce may resell products that have been returned by their customers or that are part of excess inventory.
In this way, the Spanish market joins the FBA Grade and Resell initiative, which gives your business partners the ability to resell products returned by customers and used. This initiative already operates in the United Kingdom, it will arrive in the United States later this year and is expected to be rolled out in Germany, France, Spain and Italy from 2022.
In the words of the company itself, this initiative works as follows: “Our business partners will be in charge of selecting the inventory to which they wish to give a second life through this service, and we will evaluate each selected item through a rigorous process. inspection, which results in the assignment of one of the following conditions: used-like-new, used-very good, used-good, and used-acceptable. Afterwards, the article will be put on sale again on Amazon, at the price established by the seller ”.
There is no doubt that with these movements Amazon seeks to improve its reputation after the accusations that have targeted it in recent months.
The issue has a lot to do with the new demands of the consumer. One of the constant concerns of today’s consumer is the impact that their purchases and the brands they acquire have on the environment. Brands of various branches work constantly to adapt their protests -both commercial and communication- to this demand that has become a driver of great weight in purchasing decisions.
Figures from Havas Worldwide indicate that 58 percent of people say that in recent years their attention and interest has grown towards issues related to the social and environmental impact of the products they consume.
In this way, projects on sustainability and the environment (34 percent) are the most valued by the general consumer, followed by plans to reduce social inequalities (30 percent), education (20 percent) and culture (5 percent). hundred).