Refund but keep items?

[mydogisanidiott]

I bought three bikini / swimsuit from CUPSHE. It’s Cost £80ish

I wanted for try them and keep one or two.

In the end I had to traumatically cancel the holiday so decided to send the whole lot back.

they offered me a 70% refund if I kept the items!? So I kept them for next year and paid £24 for three bikinis.

This is totally wild and wasteful to me.

is this typical

I usually shop at high street stores or online in high street store over used SHEIN or Temu

Temu do it a lot, often full refund.

Amazon did it to me recently - got 6 x cans of Nescafe coffee free as I accidentally bought the non-decaf variety instead of the decaf and they didn't want them back.

I think it's a good thing; saving on the emissions from shipping it back etc.

I've had similar with Boohoo on a couple of occasions. Faulty item - they refunded and told me to keep it/give it to charity.

Annother time I bought a co-ord set and only one part of it got delivered. They offered me a 50% discount, which I declined because one half of the outfit was no use to me. They then gave me the full refund and I got to keep the half I had. I re-ordered and got the full set, with a 'back-up' top. Win!

Why is it wasteful? Most Cupshe stock ships on planes from China. Would be very wasteful to fly them back given most stuff returned to China is disposed of not resold.
If waste is your concern, don't buy things from China that you don't intend to keep.

I’ve had a few Amazon refunds for a very low value item or bulky items.

It’s wasteful as the product isn’t used and it’s massively overcharging consumers - directly shipping from china is not what I wanted. I just wanted a range of swimwear. It’s not even cheap.

How do I know as a consumer what ships from china and what doesn’t? I did intend to keep the items.

I sound completely unenlightened but I am not. I’m just shocked at the economic model of it. That it’s cheaper to pay me to keep it. They were offering 130% credit if I kept it with no refund.

I don’t have a huge budget so shop a lot second hand and ethical brands are few and far between and very expensive- but this is not what I signed up to.

It's not wasteful as returns are often dumped or shifted onto resellers who will sell them on as bundles. Lots of travel too in that scenario.
Or you get to keep them, you can give them to a friend or donate to a charity or sometimes returns are just because an item didn't seem value for money, but you'd keep it if it was free or even cheaper.
Amazon double delivered to us, we were honest and told them, they told us to keep the items, so we gave some to the kids school and donated other stuff to a charity.

Why would you order from somewhere so shit though?

You can’t complain about the wasteful model when you’re choosing to spend your money at a company with such a terrible reputation, sweat shop standards and who fill landfills with their cheap fast fashion.

@Bobiversei didn’t realise 🤷‍♀️ I avoid SHEIN and Temu for those reasons. Never heard of this website before it was recommended for a range of products.

I don’t think there is any need to be so rude though.

I hope you have nice day.

I've had this a few times. One was a lamp, another was Laura gellar makeup, both times they suggested I pass the items on to someone.

Most reputable companies will tell you where each product is made and where it is shipped from so you can decide before buying.

I've had it with Zooplus the pet food company. The lady told me it's policy with items below a certain value. Zooplus are based in Germany so assume it's for the same cost of return reasons.

I think it made me question the actual value of what we are buying.
How does this economic model work?

Are we are being conned or is it better for them to just lose some sales? I’ve paid £24 for the bikinis so how much are they actually worth?

But I do feel it’s wasteful. I can understand cheap items where the return is not expensive than the item. Or the item is useless. I was not surprise Amazon didn’t want a broken toilet seat back!

OP why is it wasteful?

Ah, returnless refunds. Love em
only seen them on Amazon before

Are we are being conned or is it better for them to just lose some sales? I’ve paid £24 for the bikinis so how much are they actually worth?

@mydogisanidiott i don’t think it’s a con and the RRP is a reflection of quality, brand name etc. The fact you ordered them meant you were happy they seemed to be worth that price. The reason they offer a reduced discount for you to keep items instead of returning for a full refund I imagine is based on a number of things, firstly the returns/admin cost of reprocessing the items but if they’re now out of season or phased out the current clothing line then it often makes more business sense to more ‘efficiently’ recoup a smaller percentage direct from the consumer and in some cases (especially if say the buyer wanted to return 2 out of 3 items as they could t afford the third item), they get given a 70% discount then that’s a great win for the consumer.

Eg I bought a pair of expensive headphones from Amazon, but they were too big for my head and kept slipping off so I returned and Amazon offered me to keep them at a heavily reduced discount which did make me wonder if I should just keep them but in the end still returned them. Just because Amazon chose to heavily reduce the price doesn’t mean they weren’t worth their original value. I imagine they did it because I guess something like tried on headphones in their experience don’t sell well as ‘seconds’.

However, I try to keep my returns history as low as possible as I think companies are becoming more stricter and if they believe someone has a higher than average/expected returns rate then I think they can close your account.

You got free stuff to avoid landfill and CO2 emissions and you're moaning?

No good deed goes unpunished.

I still don't see how it is wasteful? You still have the perfectly good bikinis. Just keep them until you next need them. Or sell them on. Or give them to a charity shop. Nothing has been wasted.

It’s worth checking on Trustpilot before buying from a new company. Lots are pretending to ship from the uk but customer reviews show that returns go to China or other distant places.

My DS purchased a cabinet from IKEA, the handles didn’t line up and when he contacted them they gave him the option of sending another free, or keep the item and be refunded through credit, he keep the cabinet adjusted the handles and now has £100 to spend with them. For a while with Amazon they could credit me without needing to send the item back, but recently they want the item back, might be that I am literally 2 minutes drive from one of their warehouses.

Halara do this too and Amazon Occassionally.

But that’s how businesses work, they sell the goods for more than it cost them to make. Those bikinis cost less than £8 for the company to produce, so they’re happy to give you that partial refund.

It’s the same for any company. I used to work for a clothing retailer and our staff discount was “cost price plus VAT”. That often meant prices like £10 for a dress that cost £30 on the website. That’s not a dissimilar mark-up to the bikinis you’re talking about.

I’m getting a bit over dramatic but I have items I don’t actually need or want. As do a lot a lot of people who “benefit” from returnless refunds.

I suppose it’s just another cog in the wheel of capitalism and consumerism.