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The Mystery of Amazon Returns: A Journey of Unboxing and Reselling

Shopping online has become a staple of modern life, but what happens to those items once we decide to return them? While many may imagine a straightforward process where returned items are simply reshelved, the reality is far more intricate—and often disheartening.

The Dark Side of Returns

Every year, an estimated 6 billion pounds of returns end up in landfills. Major retailers, including Amazon, have realized that assessing the condition of each returned item is a costly endeavor. Many times, rather than going through the laborious process of sorting and reselling, items end up discarded. But some items manage to escape this fate, being stored in large warehouses and eventually sold off in bulk.