Excess merchandise: Destroy and Discard policy and practice in Retail Sales

[Janice Rael]

Hi, IIDB Misc Disc Subforum! Please keep this thread here. There are a lot of angles to this topic: practical and philosophical; moral, and, maybe some of you have relatable stories about or regarding the practice of destruction and discarding of excess merchandise or food, instead of distribution of unsold product.

What inspired me to make this thread here was a discussion on a good friend's Facebook wall (or account) this morning. I dislike conspicuous consumption on many levels. I'm also a library lover; I damn near lived in my local library as a child, which endeared me to authorities, who for inexplicable reasons indulged my Nancy Drew Nonsense, and let me do things like explore two abandoned train stations, clean out the library basement when it moved to a larger building, help collect glass for the museum-to-be, blah blah. I am just telling you what kind of kid I was and also saying that I was a little extra.

My friend shared this screenshot of a post by a retail worker who described the longstanding policy and practice of Destroy and Discard, Do Not Distribute, of almost all unsold merchandise or food. Here's the undated screenshot, which I believe is from this year (2024):




I grew up as a Gen X, mid-1980s "mall rat" who got into retail sales at age 18/19, and was in retail sales and part of mall culture from 1987 to 1990, then again from 1997 to 1999. Here is the story that I told my friend on the Book of Faces today (9/4/'2024), in response to seeing this screenshot and her comments expressing frustration and outage:

I learned about this [policy and practice of "excess" merchandise destruction] in the late 1980s, when I dropped out of college to play house with a guy I met in the mall. I'll call him Ken.

Ken worked at both Waldenbooks and B Dalton's, which were the two biggest bookstore chains in our area (or maybe nationally? or East Coast?) anyway.
This was in 1987, before good security cameras or the need for them.

Books that did not sell had to be destroyed and discarded. The covers had to be torn off and returned to the publishers, and, the books themselves HAD to be thrown into the dumpsters. Every WEEK!

Ken was a bibliophile and autodidact (that's apparently my fetish) and he was horrified by his job. He hated throwing the coverless books out. So... whenever he wanted to keep the trash, he'd surreptitiously set the books aside, in a corner near the dumpster.

Then, after closing, he'd go into the back hallway (aka the freight hallway), to the dumpster area, and fetch his hidden box or bag of bald books.

Ken never got caught, same as I never got caught for any of the "pranks" I pulled or penned and persuaded others to do, back then. Ken was the reason why almost no book that belonged to me, from 1987 until I "left" him at the end of 1989, had a cover.

Some laws are stupid.

I had a habit of sharing and giving away most of my books, because I didn't need the trophies. Nobody minded the absence of book covers; we were all pretty poor, and/or homeless.

It's almost impossible for modern-era retail store employees to get away with the kinds of things that were risky but routine for me and my fellow mall workers, because now, there are security and other cameras literally everywhere. I think that most retailers spend as much time, energy, and money on combating internal shrink/theft as they do on fighting every other kind of theft and shoplifting. They did when I worked there.

It's so wasteful and disgusting that "excess," "unsold," out-of-season, and other retail merchandise is destroyed and discarded, rather than somehow distributed. This happens because of Capitalism, because of greed, because of coveting. Because: "There are no laws against coveting, ™ , ® , and ©."

I mention this in a lot of songs and lyrics I write. The lyrics that most match how I may feel about this circumstance are:

And I want revenge

And sympathy

I want the world to know what's going on inside of me

And I want more than I can eat

I want things that's bad for me

I want things that's bad for me

I wrote this in 2001, not sure the exact date. I've never been comfortable with my role as a consumer. Why do I want more than I can eat? We all expect to get a Doggy Bag from our fancy restaurants now. That's disgusting to me, to expect excess.

I don't understand why and how this continues to be more than acceptable to most of the Powers that Be, the CEOs and Shareholders and shoppers. Destruction of usable merchandise is an anticipated action. We all (the Royal We may only refer to those who show their jewels) are more zealous about making sure to keep merchandise and products (and brands, labels, etc) exclusive and elusive than we are about anything else. Conservation of resources doesn't matter. The frivolous waste is built-in. Why?

If "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' goods" is a Commandment, an article of faith to the same people and businesses that claim to base their principles on the Bible, or, "Judeo-Christian" "ethics" (yes - another song lyric of mine), then, how can they justify seeking and hoarding wealth and goods? How can they justify Capitalism?

If "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' wife" is also a Commandment, and also an article of faith for these same people and businesses, then, how can they justify advertising and marketing that uses images of human people that are intended to entice?

Those are side quest questions. We already know hypocrisy when we see it, or, some of us may recognize it. Nobody who can read this is ever going to solve the problems of greed and hypocrisy. I sure am a hypocrite about a lot of things, in a lot of ways. It's human nature. (Bjork has that song.)

Back to the objectively observable world, I think we know that we don't wan't to increase the amount of "trash" in landfills and in nature, right? Some of us know this?

So, is there anything that can be done about corporate waste and "excess" merchandise? Can we seize the means of over-production?

It feels like the same kids who get mad on the playground, who "take their toys and go home." I sure do that! It's immaturity and selfishness on my part. I am reminded of an old joke:

The Selfish Child's Prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my toys to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my toys to take
So that no other kids can play with them

...

Why are we??? How did selfish children get to the top, to make the rules and to trash our Earth and waste our resources? I mean, besides fraternities and Greek Life. Okay, in addition to them and that; don't try to tell me that there's no role here. Pff, that's another side quest, or, all of recorded history... for white people.


Why is this waste acceptable and expected? What can we do? Continue to shrug and turn away, because we're powerless?

I find that unacceptable. How does it make you feel?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I worked at Marshalls before TJX (owner of TJ Maxx, Homegoods) bought them. At Marshalls, periodically we'd bring out the repricing machines and scan everything. Some products would get a new sticker and then moved to clearance. And over time, stuff would be picked up because the price was lowered enough. I don't remember any merchandise being defaced. Wanted to get rid of something, they priced it down, it went into clearance. I still have the two Reebok DriFit shirts I got for something like $5 a piece, that stuff was probably $80 back then!

I've got to imagine TJX is similar. Getting 25% the price is better than 0%, and there is much less effort involved. Now some higher end stores might due this due to product image. Getting a fashion designer shirt for $5 could be frowned upon.

 

[ZiprHead]

I remember a few years ago seeing a photograph from the back of a Walmart showing huge bins of hams that were going to be thrown out. I remember thinking "How wasteful."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I worked at Marshalls before TJX (owner of TJ Maxx, Homegoods) bought them. At Marshalls, periodically we'd bring out the repricing machines and scan everything. Some products would get a new sticker and then moved to clearance. And over time, stuff would be picked up because the price was lowered enough. I don't remember any merchandise being defaced. Wanted to get rid of something, they priced it down, it went into clearance. I still have the two Reebok DriFit shirts I got for something like $5 a piece, that stuff was probably $80 back then!

I've got to imagine TJX is similar. Getting 25% the price is better than 0%, and there is much less effort involved. Now some higher end stores might due this due to product image. Getting a fashion designer shirt for $5 could be frowned upon.

There comes a point where the labor isn't worth it.

And there's the issue of return scams. Non-receipt return for store credit, use the credit to "buy" something else.

And with food there's the issue of whether it's safe to eat. Once the cold chain is compromised that's it, but there's no way to tell. If a store is yeeting a bunch of perishable stuff think cold chain problems.

Stores aren't doing this sort of thing to be evil, but to prevent blowback.

 

[southernhybrid]

I worked in retail briefly during the 60s, but I have no idea if anything was thrown out. When it comes to things like clothing, it makes more sense that they would be donated to charity, after marking them down, if they still didn’t sell.

 

[Jarhyn]

I worked in retail briefly during the 60s, but I have no idea if anything was thrown out. When it comes to things like clothing, it makes more sense that they would be donated to charity, after marking them down, if they still didn’t sell.

Well, for designer brands like "Supreme", the whole point is that it's cheap shit marked up to insane prices, and what you are paying for is essentially the right to say "I paid too much for this shit".

So it kind of defeats the purpose of the brand itself to allow any instance of it to be owned without paying stupid amounts of money.

What value would there be in selling a shirt whose entire purpose is "I paid too much money" when select homeless people can also sport that brand.

Extend this logic to everything whose perceived value is "as signal of wealth".

I have quite a bit of dislike for such sorts of brands, however, and would seek to put some manner of legal stick in their proverbial eye, but I have no clue how that would have to be approached.

 

[bilby]

I understand that in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, it is common to see people wearing celebratory sports gear from the losing team - those shirts having been manufactured prior to the big game, and being donated to charity when events rendered them obsolete.

"San Francisco - 2024 Champions" is a meaningless false claim in a country where English is rarely spoken, and America is a distant rumour; But a shirt keeps you warm regardless of what is printed on it, and it has to be a better idea than sending the stuff to landfill.

 

[thebeave]

I understand that in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, it is common to see people wearing celebratory sports gear from the losing team - those shirts having been manufactured prior to the big game, and being donated to charity when events rendered them obsolete.

"San Francisco - 2024 Champions" is a meaningless false claim in a country where English is rarely spoken, and America is a distant rumour; But a shirt keeps you warm regardless of what is printed on it, and it has to be a better idea than sending the stuff to landfill.

Yep. Sometimes with comical results.

Your discarded edgy t-shirts



My aunt used to work in a thrift store and would often give me a bundle of unsold random t-shirts to wear as work clothes (painting, etc). The sports ones (usually Bay Area teams or players) are the most annoying as people would strike up conversations with me about it, and I don't watch or follow pro sports or even care about any Bay Area team. Rather than risk getting dog-piled by local rabid fans for expressing my feelings of boredom about sports, I would just smile, nod and move along quickly. One t-shirt I got was from a jazz and blues festival in wine country listing performers' names I never heard of on the back of the shirt. Unfortunately, someone standing behind me in line who went to that concert decided to strike up a rather enthusiastic conversation about it. All I heard for the next 5 minutes was how great Green Apples Magillicutty (or whatever his name was) sang and played, blah, blah, blah. Life is a lot more peaceful now that I found out I can buy six solid color t-shirts on Amazon for about $20.

 

[unapologetic]

Books are not destroyed out of greed. Bookstores and newsstands only pay for what they sell. they have 'return privileges' on books, newspapers, mags, and comics.
They need to send back the unsold for credit. They send only covers to save on postage. Comic stores (the collector market) gets a bigger wholesale discount but NO return privilege. Don't need returns because they have a healthy 'aftermarket', back issue sales. There is no 'destroy or discard' of comics anymore. I haven't seen a coverless comic in 40 years.
The poster who took coverless books home was technically stealing from the publishers who had bought back the books. When she could just as easily stole an undamaged copy.
J.R.: Books were a bad example of your point.
And a lot of places have 'food banks' to distribute excess food to the needy.

 

[thebeave]

Books are not destroyed out of greed. Bookstores and newsstands only pay for what they sell. they have 'return privileges' on books, newspapers, mags, and comics.
They need to send back the unsold for credit. They send only covers to save on postage. Comic stores (the collector market) gets a bigger wholesale discount but NO return privilege. Don't need returns because they have a healthy 'aftermarket', back issue sales. There is no 'destroy or discard' of comics anymore. I haven't seen a coverless comic in 40 years.
The poster who took coverless books home was technically stealing from the publishers who had bought back the books. When she could just as easily stole an undamaged copy.
J.R.: Books were a bad example of your point.
And a lot of places have 'food banks' to distribute excess food to the needy.

Ya gotta be careful not to insult them, though, with your food contributions.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Rebecca De Mornay.

 

[thebeave]

Rebecca De Mornay.

She did go through a rather radical physical and career change, didn't she?

I always wondered what happened to her. She was so good in Risky Business.