[viraptor]

> there isn't always a price point that is both low enough that people are willing to buy the cheaper returned item, but still high enough that it's profitable for Amazon

This doesn't seem to match what the article is listing:

> There's no rhyme or reason to what gets destroyed: Dyson fans, Hoovers, the occasional MacBook and iPad; the other day, 20,000 Covid (face) masks

Any MacBook or iPad will sell for more than the cost of shipping. Dyson fans will as well. There are other reasons it's not done.

[crazygringo]

The article is cherry-picking for sensationalism. Those aren't representative, obviously. And the "there's no rhyme or reason" is the author's (entirely unsupported) opinion, not a fact.

Amazon is a for-profit business. It's not intentionally dumping MacBooks it can resell profitably.

Obviously neither of us knows in this particular circumstance, but one would assume they were damaged enough to not be resellable, that a mistake was made somewhere, or a third-party seller using FBA requested them disposed of for some reason (e.g. an ancient used model there was no more demand for).

[viraptor]

It's not that's obvious to be honest. We already know that expensive brands will destroy their stock rather than lower prices / allow donations.

This happens with electronics (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2019/06/04/france-ba...), clothes (https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5bad1ef2e4b09d41eb9f7bb0), food (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-dest...), etc.

[crazygringo]

Amazon isn't a luxury brand.

And if there are any luxury brands Amazon sells (are there even?) where the brands demanded Amazon return returned items to the brand for destruction... well then it's the brand that's responsible, not Amazon.

Again, Amazon's just out there to make money. It's not going to destroy swathes of merchandise it can easily otherwise make money off of. That kind of goes against the whole profit motive.