The Shocking Truth of Holiday Returns - Where Your “Stuff” Really Ends Up!

Her job was to get this underwear out of the returns package and look at it for They called it residue, which that's kind of a.

If there was stayings in it, and.

The stuff that was sort of nastier went to one of the secondary outlets.

You know, I won't say the name of it, but what.

I gotta the secondary outlet, I don't know if I.

Now really.

Really really hello and welcome to really know really what's Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden who want you to know that subscribing to our show is a gift you give yourself and that you'll never return. Well, you'll return to our show, you just won't return the gift to yourself.

Whatever. This episode is all about the stuff you did.

Return over the holidays and what's being called the return Tsunami. Doctor Dale Rogers joins Jason and Peter to discuss the dark side and the hidden costs of returns, where your returns actually end up, and why we're returning so much more stuff than ever before.

You will also learn the.

Low tech way in which returned clothing is checked for stains and smells, how the ninety nine cents Store survived, and the real story behind expiration dates. Now here are Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden.

Really, so here's my question to you to open our right holidays? You know, get anything you didn't like anything, you just want me, that's for me. Not so much comes with maybe a receipt you can return it. Lots of stuff, lots of stuff you do it not yet, not yet, but you're planning on. Yeah, so here's your really no, really, the free return on your ugly Christmas weather just costs the plan of the trillion dollars. Really no, really, where's my belt? It was in front of you. I

Logistics, right and I and.

I looked at you like like you had a stroke because you know me, I don't know what you're doing talking about.

I find so so during COVID, yeah, everybody heard about supply chain, supply chain, supply chain. You don't have this, We don't have that and we ran on a toilet paper. Everybody remembers all.

I remember that that we were hoarding and doing and then when you go a little bit, nobody returned, by the way, unused.

No nobody returned.

And my wife we invested in it. I bought ten thousand dollars both of toilet paper that would go up right.

And it didn't. We just ended up using it.

So with the supply chain stuff that that broke down doing the COVID thing. Yes, and now I'm hearing about the entire upmarket thing of carducts coming back. I've read this Christmas, this holiday season returns could be eight hundred billion dollars.

Yeah, So let me just I'm fascinated by this and I don't understand it. So ladies and gentlemen, let me do the introduction for doctor Dale Rogers. Doctor Rogers is a leading researcher in reverse logistics, sustainable supply chain management, supply chain finance, and secondary markets, and is published in the leading journals of the supply chain.

And logistics fields. That's not all.

In twenty twelve, he became the first academic to receive the intern And this is an award. You're going to be vying for my friend the International Warehouse and Logistics Association Distinguished Service Award, first one given its one hundred and thirty year history.

I don't have an Emmy, and this man and we go for that.

Everything I just said, if I hadn't read it off the paper, I still don't.

Know what I'm saying. I don't know anything I just said. I think it says that he's the foremost guy and talking about what we're gonna asks.

Hello, doctor Dale Rogers, welcome, nice to be here, Thank you for coming in.

We've been throwing around the term reverse logistics. Can you just explain what that is?

Yes, so it is it is going backwards. So it's products that have been for sale or available at somewhere in the supply chain and they're either stopped or a consumer brings it back and you repurpose them.

You move them in a reverse fashion.

For the marketplace to go where perhaps they can be used, because your last choice is putting them in a landfill.

If you do that, you failed.

And if you're a company whose first choice is putting him in a landfill, then then you don't have the right guys running supply chain there.

So if I go online and I see a T shirt that I like, but I don't know if I'm the small, all the medium, of the large. So I say, hey, what the heck? I order all three, and I say I'll keep the one that fits me and I send back the other two. My assumption is the other two we'll go back on a shelf and somebody will buy them, am I writer?

Yeah, mostly that that's true. They mostly will. It's kind of funny. You turn on a computer once and it's used, but you're underwear. If you buy it and send it back, it can be resold as new no more.

Can I just say, in that scenario, I think we got it completely wrong.

I would flip those I would.

I would think the one turned on computer and call it new the underwear I'm not saying.

So this sounds like we're figuring out businesses and figuring out But then I read that the biggest place that takes returns, which is in Pennsylvania, I forget the name of it, where a shirt came back and it all has to have eyeballs on it. They got to open the shirts smell it like you would if you're getting another day out of your jeans, smell it, look at it for stains, it goes in another bag, It decides where it goes next, whether it goes to resale, whether

On No, a lot of stuff.

If you return it back to a store, the store will disposition at right. In a store, they'll put it back on the shelf. So you know, one of the rules is you don't want to drive something eight hundred miles and then throw it away, all right, So if it gets back in that supply chain and that reverse supply chain, you do have to check it and make sure. I mean, honestly, here's a old man's story for you.

You had forty percent returns at the time.

They asked me to come look at the place, and I remember watching the reverse process and they said, well, let me introduce you to Rita. Who's this lady that was working really hard. She was sort of the lead and the reprocessing of women's lingerie. And I went to shake her hand and she said, oh, you don't want to shake my hand. And I thought, oh, maybe she thinks I'm going to get her fired or something, but I.

Said no, no, no, I'm just here to observe.

And she said, well, no, you don't want to touch me. And her job, as you kind of mentioned it was to get this underwear out of the returns package and look at it for They called it res a do, which that's kind of a funny word. And and then there was if there was stains in it, and if there wasn't, there was a steamer thing that came up right by her little bench thing and she would get the wrinkles out of it, fold it up, put it

You know, I won't say the name of it, but but isn't that.

What I got? The secondary outlet? They got the unsteamable undergarments.

I don't know if I or you know, Yeah, you're on the right track.

Outlets.

Yeah, so, I mean, and and her job was to smell the n and want a guy.

Right.

There was a guy was in her group that had played football at Ohio State.

Now he wasn't one of the more successful football players. I think.

There was this huge guy and he had on headphones and he kind of had a beat going and I was just watching him and he would get the panties out of the package and hold him up to his note and I thought, boy that I don't know what he was thinking.

In any rate, it was It's one of the worst.

What is the job interview process?

For that job? You got to be able to smell right, Actually you're kind of go on the sidelines, and you got.

To recognize certain kinds of sense and you gotta be okay with the product you're smelling. But I'm also wondering if some people like that job.

But if you open up the Victoria's Secret Catalog and you order you and you order an item and it's are you surprised when you got?

This thing? Has no ass I mean you.

Can see in the pictures it's a string and a string and a kerchief.

That's all it is. And you open it and go wow, I never thought I never expected this before the internet.

Before dropping off at the postal center returning, I'd rather just you know, and I'll just keep it.

I'll wear it. It's not that big a deal. Now.

These companies have brought them on themselves, like tom shoes, they say, hey, buy four different sizes in different styles, and then return to ones you don't like, Try try this size.

I think now the law.

And the policy just to add to what you're saying, where you can read six months, a year down the road you can return.

I was at home depot a woman standing actually with two dead plants, and I'm locking like I'm laughing. I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, if this poor woman, how sad he's brought in, thinks she's going to get attorneys, And the woman the desk goes absolutely, we take them back after a year, and I'm thinking the retailers have gotten so competitive. And then there's the secret lie of hey, if it's under twenty bucks and it's certain retailers just keep it and people take advanta we'll give you it.

Really is brilliant though, I mean, think about who were the great retailers of the beginning of the twentieth century, So Sears and JC Penny.

They're not the great retailers anymore, unfortunately.

But.

If you think about how they both really made it.

So J. C.

Penny, James Cashpenny, he's this guy. He's got a general store and Kimera, Wyoming. I don't know if you've ever been to Kimer. I actually have been there. I had to go see the mother's store and it's about the size. Maybe it's a little bit bigger than the room we're sitting in, but Kimer is not a big place.

So what was his innovation, Well, cash and carry.

When most times you went to a general store, you would put it on a tab and pay at the end of the month. So he was using his cash better. And then the other thing was no questions asked returns, And what that did was it removed risk from the consumer because they knew that they could go back to that store and you become a customer for life instead of being nervous about man if I invest in whatever this is, a blanket or or a shirt or whatever it is, then I don't know, you know, I'm stuck

It's it's too good. It's it's the best kind of accurate A twenty dollars sweater. I read the cost of the return, Cadrico was it's thirteen though, So that means if my neighbor's a serial returner, I'm paying for their return and by building that into the price of the sweater.

Well, and there's efficient ways where that stuff gets sort of pulled out of the forward market and goes through the reverse logistics supply chain, and you've got all these different players who mostly are invisible. But there's some really big salvage dealers. We call them in the UK, they're

We've mentioned the Chili thing because that was another reason we did this topic. There's so much clothing that's either overproduced or returned in Chili that it's on mounds that you can see from space. And I got I got here one truckload of clothing is sent to a landfill or burn every second. And let's see, Chili has become thirty nine thousand tons of old so unsold clothing. That's a lot on sold clothing.

Well, and and and though that's really a failure because because there should be a marketplace for that somewhere. The problem is how much labor can you put into an item.

I'm still back on the fact that you've pronounced the country Chile as Chili.

Chile, Chile, Chile. Yeah, not Chili, not Chili. It's not the thing you it is Chili. Use this Chile. So I just wanted to point that out.

I really haven't listened to the rest of the show. We're saying a lot of words here, here's here's here's the thought I'm thinking about.

I'm honestly thinking about.

There are people in my family who do a fair amount of returns and they and they know they're going to do it. They they you know, like I said, it may be that they don't know what the sizing so they do them.

But what has has has retailers thought.

Of the idea or maybe it's an impractical idea of charging an additional fee for the consumer for an item that could be returned and then going okay, you're not returning it will rebate the cost.

But at least now if you.

Do return it, we're going to we're going to recoup our problem because if we have to repurpose this or if we have to trash that item, well.

If they can, they they wouldn't tell the consumer. There's a I mean, because they just keep it if.

They can see.

But then there's no inst because if they don't tell the consumer either they've priced me out of that product, where otherwise, if I knew I was going to get a refund back, if I'm seriously going to keep this product, I would go, Okay, now it's a reasonable price.

I know I'm going to get refunded that thing.

It's like taking you know, when I go to the hotel and they take the deposit upfront, I know it's coming back to me. But why wouldn't they do that to offset their costs? But why wouldn't they do that more of they use more of a disincentive, which is called a restocking fee. So if you send it back, they say, well, we're not going to refund one hundred percent, We'll refund five that.

That's what that stocking fit. So that's the resite. So that's normally how how how they would do it. Now it's hard to continue to charge restocking fees. A lot of companies have tried it and have backed off because consumers don't like it.

And then the end of the day, you need consumers.

To show up, and you know, it's it's it's easy to return stuff, but it isn't always easy, and so you know, people will think, well, I'll get around to that someday, and then all of a sudden you realize it's a year later and you still got it. And so it works really for the companies they actually think it's a good strategy. And some folks, you know, like Warby Parker, I'm sure you know those stories, they actually built their model around efficient returns and and.

Pick five keep one. We're good, right.

Companies keep trying to push back on consumers and and and slow this stuff down, but it always comes back to the old J. C.

Penny and you.

Want to remove wrist from the consumer because that's how the consumer keeps you seem to.

Be partaking of any of those companies.

And I'm so also how they've got it together that I can order something and it comes to my house eat later that day or tomorrow, if they're that good at supply chain that way.

I mean, I can't believe we wait before.

Not only does it come to your house an hour after you ordered it, but it's like I ordered a big pen and it comes in a box that you could put right with packing peanuts and bubble wrap, and I what, what is it? I don't know if this is your area, but you know, the closest I have to what is with the packing materials?

What is the waste situation on the.

Well, they don't have uh, they don't have a packaging. They don't have a box right or for every size escape you you know. But it's way better in twenty twenty three than it was in say, two thousand and five, because remember they start out as a book company and and VHS tapes and back then they they only they really so on a on a packing line. There's only so many packages you you can store. You can't have a thousand.

I can't believe. Look, I've got a bell and a pen. What size? But if you see it, if you see.

These two items and a box comes in front of you on the conveyor belt that you can put a toaster up and in.

Do you really go, Okay, we're good. You don't have to hate your job. I'm loving that you're going.

I don't know if this is her air, but I got some personal stuff I need address.

So I have to make this.

I haven't made a penny off of this pot.

I got two pair of pants. I gotta go back. Can you take a look. It's like you don't sniffing first, that is coming.

Do you think that that moving on from the the reverse logistics and the fact that so much is getting wasted, et cetera. Do you think if they let the public, if people knew or if they tested it, if people knew the impact of the returns, that they would be more reticent or they would change their behavior somewhat.

Well, I think there are some companies that encourage consumers to engage. You know, if you look at Patagonia, they have a really interesting model. So you buy a jacket from Patagonia. Usually it's higher price than maybe something that would be sort of similar to that jacket, right, but they want you to keep that for the rest of your life, and you can send it back at no charge then because if it gets ripped or whatever, I can get it fixed. So you know, but not everybody

Stores live off of overstocks.

Mostly it also returns, and it's a relatively efficient way to move it to a new lifetime where you got consumers that will buy at Bloomingdale's. But then you also got consumers that will buy at Rosses or Marshals, and then the level down would be the ninety nine since stores. This there's this whole ecosystem.

The overstock of not prescription medications but over the counter medications and things like Ppe where you know, everybody wanted masks and now the mask is tapered off. Everybody wanted COVID in home testing, and now that's tapered off.

What happens with you? You can't is that just landfill? There's no other option for.

The no no, but I mean there is a.

There is a obsolescence date on some of that stuff. Right hand sanitizer and so on. But there are people trying to repurpose stuff even if it goes past the obsolescent state. Some other countries are not as fussy about end of life dates as we are.

In this and should we be.

I mean, are they really as far as you know, if my advil, you know, supposedly ran out six months ago and I take it, I find it still.

It still works.

Yeah.

Yeah, And and to some extent, sometimes those obsolescence states are are really for marketing purposes, like for instance, vinegar. So vinegar really has a seven year lifetime because you know, it's fermented wine basically apple juice and so on. And you know what happens to vinegar when it gets old, It turns into vinegar.

I mean it's not.

Really and and but you but the companies that sell vinegar, like Hinds and so on, don't feel comfortable having a seven year window, so they make it a year.

So some stuff it's artificial. Now, other things.

Degrade, and you really do need to pay attention to the obsolescence.

This is a constant discussion with my wife, who finds that labeling. If I, you know, if I pull something out of the medicine cabinet and says, well, expired six months ago.

What do you think does it? No one expired six months ago?

If it said June and I took it in July, are you saying this is not gonna and she's really hardcore.

I don't even show my wife. I just take like Ada from nineteen seventy eighth, so it doesn't matter.

Well, I can't hide any Yeah, you know, it's interesting because there weren't There weren't generally open code dates on consumer products until Procter and Gamble in nineteen ninety seven really pioneered that, and Walmart said, look, if you're going to sell something in our store and it's a product can expire, you got to make the date an open code date. But a lot of stuff really lasts longer, and we call them the dinnet can stores.

There's a in fact, there's a bunch of them around.

LA where you've got these grocery outlets and you even have grocery auctions where stuff will be out of date and folks will go up and bid on it. And what really happens in this secondary market for food and advil and all the other stuff is that it keeps it out of the landfills, and maybe people that couldn't afford it at this price, shot at the higher price can can can pick that stuff up. So it's mostly a good thing. Actually amazing.

Before the last thing, I'm going to ask, because we had that supply chain issue during COVID. Everything's made overseas. China is the enemy, it's hard, we're negotiating with them, blah blah blah, all of that talk about China.

China. By the way, China, I'm gonna.

Never punched you on camera. It just could be a very special episode of.

Really really really trying to say I'm trying to contribute.

Is China is as the supply chain chain is kind of making less merchandise for us of the world. How how what has changed since that supply chain if you kept doing about every day.

Well, so, the tariffs that were put on the previous administration and then kept on by the current one didn't help that. But the truth is is that the cost of manufacturing in China was increasing. So when we started going over there thirty forty years ago, forty years ago, you know, they're making one or two dollars an hour. And now the you know, they have a big middle class and the price that's gone up.

So we're looking around.

Companies are looking around, and also you want to go you want to look at pricing. I mean I had to call this morning on this very topic looking at manufacturing a particularly commodity in Central America and can we do semiconductors in Central America? In Panama? And so there's a lot of moving around. If you're a vice president of supply chain for a computer company, you're saying, wait, we've got way too much stuff in China.

Because there's political risk.

There's also already we wanted to diversify a little bit because those costs were coming up, and so we've got to really think about how are we going to do this. And now we're seeing mostly healed supply chain. And that's the main reason that inflation has gone down. It's not some clever political deal. It's really because supply chains broken. Supply chain is what caused inflation.

Would have never known unless you can The funny thing is we buy so much stuff we don't eat. I was talking to Google him and I said, we buy so much stuff we don't eat. And there's a long pause and he said juicer.

Yeah, I used the juicer. What you every topped? Because Juicer, at least there's a function. You go.

Okay, Instagram really thinks it knows me. It thinks it has my number right now.

All right.

So if I'm flipping through my Instagram feed and there's an item and I look at it, I don't top it, I don't touch it, I don't ask for more from it.

I looked at it. I looked at it for three sections.

There's a there's a thing now Instagram is trying to sell me, and and I may buckle.

It is a it is a ball. It's a ball about the size of the magic eight ball. Yes, it seems to be all vents.

Yes, And if you charge it for two and a half hours, for eight minutes, it'll hover and you can push it in and it'll go.

I couldn't tell you I am.

So I'm sitting there going and I know woul happen. If I get this day, I'll take it out of the box. I'll charge it and go, oh, oh, look at that.

That's cool. I'll call my kids, I'll go look at that. That's cool, and they'll be in the and I'll go I don't want to. But you told me the other day too.

Back to Jesus for a second. You said you were in packing the kitchen. They're doing stuff, and you said to Dana, which is the three justicest you want to keep?

All I know is in my house.

I spend a third of the day prepping for this show. I spend a third of my day doing family stuff, and a third of day breaking down boxes from.

Oh my god, right, the boxes things.

He's just it's making me cuch google hime. Hello, Well, professor, you're doing that too. You're breaking down boxes all day long. There, that's why he's going home deep.

Feel better, feel better, Yes, David.

You got to keep up with it.

You got to keep up with it.

Well, one thing I just want to this is actually there's not a correction, but I just want I don't even get into that.

There is some real angry in there.

To my friends at Victorious Secret, the scientific name is called bromey drophilia because those are the folks that really really enjoy the sniffing of the underground. So I think they could be your your power sniffers. You know, there might be a twelve step program around.

By the way, they can knock the cost of sniffing. Wait, these people, volunt you're speaking about return.

So I was thinking that perhaps we wanted to talk about the top five most famous returns in history.

Yes, please, professor, Actually, and you know sometimes you can find these lists online.

I actually have compiled this list myself because no one, I don't think, has ever deemed it worthy.

Five returns of all time, of all time. But let the professor. Is there a famous praturnity you know about? No, you have stumped the band, moving on.

To another carrigan. No, there's another category. Yes, all right, so go ahead.

Number five General Douglas MacArthur return.

I shall return.

I shall return.

The Philippines he left in nineteen forty two horses.

While you're listening, I'm going to be nodding.

Though, you Knowqueen Victoria but a pencil and then she went this thing.

Bro he does the rest of I'm going to be nodding. My shoelacens into into a noose. Okay, just because I know where this is going, I don't think you do.

I don't think larger amount of money.

Number four Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Famous, Oh my god, Yeah, I'll be back and then he's like a medial jumper.

It's like a remedial like this can't be long category. You know what she cares about.

Here we go number three, No, no, no, number three, number three Sean Connery.

Yeah, he left the role of James Bond after Diamonds Are Forever, but.

He came right.

Nineteen eighty three.

Okay, the professor, Yeah here I think he might be able to get the Jeopardy play professor smart people on March nineteenth, nineteen ninety five.

At the Sports World on Fire with the two words I'm.

Back as you returned.

Yeah, wow, to professional basketball.

And the number one thing that was the churn.

Of all time, Yeah, Tom Brady.

No, the McRib, which makes you.

To really twist the night because you know, the McDLT went down in flames and it's never coming back.

So you went with the McRib.

Oh my, And if you have a hankering for it, you could go to mcriblocator dot com and find.

The McRib in your area. Do you know who needed to help?

Just answer your question, do you make a salary from this this podcast?

You know who's the biggest McDonald that's why are you kidding me?

If folks, if you would like to give this episode of the show back, it will be here restocking fee. You know, I will tell you the one thing that I that I should have asked for a refund, and I never did.

Did I tell you the story? Years ago?

I went to an elite resort with my wife where you know, you pay for everything up front, you don't pay for everything else. And we get there and everything about it was wrong. They lost our bags for a day, we had no bags. You go to the rooms, there's no lock on the door. Everything's fine here in paradise. You don't need a lock on the door. You never eat alone, you eat with the community. You don't know anybody. Sure, you pay for everything. The big thing was tennis. This

Can of tennis balls. I went, oh, are you kidding?

And there was that, and then there was like a topless beach and the staff was hitting on my wife, and I went, we're out of here. She's supposed to be eight days after three days we left, and my wife is, will never get the money back?

I said, I'll get the money back. I will.

I'll get an excuse and I'll get the money back. Never applied. I never applied for the money because I was I thought that I don't very rare do I return.

So the other part of that we return is your wife yours also stayed in touch with the Combana people, so that, by the way, do you know, professor the number one stowaway at him? It's returned accidentally with other returns. Do you know what that is? No underwear? Underwear? Underwear comes back a lot tangled up in underpants. Number two is they vape pins?

Because return jewelry and then jewelry and jewelry because they're in what how are they returned accidentally?

Because the wife saw the husband sniffing somebody's underwear and I said.

Wow, And a lot of wedding dresses come back, Yes they do. Rice, there you go.

The San Francisco try.

All right, thank you everybody, We'll be back. And like I said, we watch this one. We shall return Really.

Now, Really.

Really Now Really.

A's another episode if Really No Really comes to a close. I know you're wondering, are there any purchased items that you really can't return? Oh? Of course there are, and I'll tell you in a moment. But first let's thank

Online at reallynoreally dot com.

If you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us, and if we use it, we will send you a little gift.

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Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

So are there items you can really never return?

There absolutely are, and they include any hazardous materials containing flammable liquids or gases, like lighters and nail polish. Most electronic devices can't be returned after thirty days of purchase. Digital downloads of books, games, music, or movies can't go back. Gift cards are not refundable. Food, wine, beer, and spirits. You get them, you own them. Live insects and fresh flowers. They are yours till death.

Do you part.

Prescription medications Hope you don't need them, but you sure can't return them.

Pet food same as people food. You're keeping it.

And any product missing its serial number or universal product code is yours for life. But take heart you can sell just about anything, and a number of online sites from Facebook, Marketplace to eBay.

Thanks for listening and to hope you return soon.

Really No, Really, really no Really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment