Home Depot Throws Away, But Won't Donate, Brand New Merchandise

[DerbyDad03]

I was in the tool aisle of Home Depot today and I noticed an employee on a man-lift taking stuff off of the top shelf and throwing it on the floor.

It was mostly those soft tool bags (more than a dozen) and mostly Home Depot colors, but there were some other styles mixed in. They looked brand new, still "folded" like they would be if they were on sale. There was also some Dremel kits and other items, all of which looked new from where I was standing.

A manager-like person came by and said to the employee "I'll get my garbage cart."

The employee said "Do we have to throw them away? Can't we give them away at that thing next week?"

Manager: "You mean the employee meeting? No, we can't do that. We're doing inventory in 3 days and we have to get this stuff out of here."

That's when I spoke up. "What about donating them? I work with a couple of youth organizations and those bags would make great awards and prizes."

Manager: To me - "I'm sorry, sir. We can't do that." To the employee - "I'll get the garbage cart."

What a friggin' waste.

[aemeijers]

Blame the lawyers and accountants, and the liability and tax laws. Declaring something 'spoiled' to get it off the books is an old dodge. I am not a tax lawyer, but IIRC spoiled inventory goes in a different column on the balance sheet. And as to donating stuff- aw, that means internal red tape and records so they can get brownie points, and if some clueless kid hurts themselves with something with THEIR corporate logo on it, well, the sky will fall in. I see a lot of perfectly good stuff in the dumpsters where I work, because it 'costs too much' to jump through the hopes to donate it to a good home.

I miss common sense. Next time you see something like that, drive around back an hour later, and watch the employees loading it into their cars. (Unless this is one of those really anal companies that dump the carts straight into a compacter, which is sadly more common every year.)

-- aem sends....

[Uncle Monster]

Our government is the worst at it. I remember working with a guy who'd been in The US Navy in supply and he related a story of new tools and equipment being buried and brand new trucks being sent to the target range. I certainly hope things have improved since then. It's a shame that the civilian government agencies are not much better.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[gfretwell]

I used to work for a corporation that sold Business Machines Internationally and they had the same policy. Returned equipment or surplus new stuff had to be destroyed. We finally did get them to agree to recycle the scrap but it had to be scrap. Nothing useful. The excuse was they did not want to compete with what they sold by putting serviceable equipment in the field for free.

If HD doesn't contribute things to the youth organization they will have to buy them and that is a market HD can compete for.

We were able to sneak some things out the back door for a few teaching programs but it was "salvaged parts" not "machines".

[Rick-Meister]

Whoa kids. Before you blow Home Depot away with your conspiracy theories, you need to get the facts. When Home Depot buys from a vendor, their agreement states that if a product is returned and cannot be put back on the shelf as brand new, it MUST be destroyed. That saves both Home Depot AND the vendor the cost of shipping it back and repackaging it--which often costs more than the product is worth.

The same policy holds true if a new item doesn't sell well and Home Depot would prefer to send it back to the manufacturer for credit. Neither Home Depot nor the manufacturer wants to cover the cost of packaging and shipping.

At the same time, no vendor wants to issue credit to Home Depot for returned merchandise, only to find that it's been either sold or donated. Can you imagine how much "defective" merchandise chargebacks a manufacturer would get hit with if Home Depot could turn around and sell it? They would be asking for credits all day long and then selling it.

Bottom line here is that it's actually cheaper to destroy the merchandise than it is to package it up and ship it back.

You may not like it, but if you ever start running a retail business and see how much it costs to ship stuff back, you'd understand in a second.

As for donating perfectly good merchandise that isn't selling and could be donated--compain to the MANUFACTURER, not the retailer.

By the way, Home Depot is no different than any of the other large retailers. You'll find the same procedure at every large company.

[Phisherman]

Many stores do the same. I used to work at a nation-wide retail store and we would cut unsold athletic shoes in half before throwing them into the dumpster. It is an expense to the store to donate, plus the person who picks up the goods may just sell the items at a much lower cost. My father owned a bakery and nuns would come by at the end of the day to pickup unsold goods for the convent. I doubt the nuns were selling doughnuts on the side, but if they did it was for a good cause.

[trader4]

As opposed to asking for credits all day long and throwing it out? Assuming what you say is correct, they could just as easily make false claims regardless of whether the stuff goes in the dumpster or to charity.

[trader4]

How is it only an expense when merchandise is donated and not an expense to spend time cutting up merchandise, which involves additional labor cost and then throwing it away?

plus

And surely there are similar charities available everywhere which can be vetted to ensure that they are legitimate and that the chance that donated goods aren't being diverted for personal profit. It would seem with all the homeless and needy a reasonable system could be worked out, if anyone cared to do so.

[ransley]

One day I was looking for expensive 8ga 4 wire gen cable, i saw it at HD on sale, next day I went back to buy it. HD said they put it in the dumpster because it did not sell. They could have discounted it greater, it would have sold.

[HeyBub]

In the book business, more books are destroyed than sold.

Books are sold by publishers with return privileges - if the book doesn't sell, it can be returned for credit. BUT for mass-market paperbacks, it only costs about twenty cents to manufacture a new copy. The cost of returning, sorting, restocking, culling the shop-worn, blah-blah-blah is higher for the publisher than if the bookstore simply destroys the book in place.

A big teaching hospital in Minnesota replaces about 75-100 computers every year. They've tried various techniques for dealing with the broken, out-dated, or Macintosh machines. None proved satisfactory. They solved their problem by simply putting the old computers on the curb for the urban fairies. No paperwork, no recycling headaches, no tax lawer consultations.

[DerbyDad03]

.- Hide quoted text -

re: No paperwork, no recycling headaches, no tax lawer consultations.

Until Fred goes to get some free computers and Bob goes to get some free computers and Bob beats Fred over the head with a keyboard cuz Bob doesn't like to share and Fred gets a lawyer and the lawyer sues the hospital for creating the situation that prompted Bob to assault Fred.

They may not win, but you can bet your hard drive that there will be paperwork and lawyers and no more computers at the curb.

[Kuskokwim]

And they would eventually be sold on eBay.

[Joe]

Talk about waste... Last week I visited a friend who has three or four acres of garden out in the country. He grows most everything he needs foodwise and always has a surplus to share. This year was an unusually good one for potatoes and he wound up with about 2 tons of Kenebeck (sp.?) and Yukon Gold spuds. He called every service agency in the Yellow pages to see if their clients would want some of the bounty and was turned down flatly, hearing over and over, 'We only want money or canned goods.' The solution to the surplus could be to put the veggies in big boxes by the side of the road with a large sign, "FREE!" and see how many shiny SUV's stop to load up. Apparently the homeless and underprivileged aren't suffering all that much.

Joe

[Michael Dobony]

Write a letter to the manager telling him you put this on the NG and send a copy of the letter to HD headquarters. Let the manager know a copy is going to HG.

[DerbyDad03]

re: The solution to the surplus could be to put the veggies in big boxes by the side of the road with a large sign, "FREE!" and see how many shiny SUV's stop to load up.

Pick a road in a poor neighborhood and you won't have to worry about the "shiny SUV's". (There may be shiny SUV's in the poor neighborhoods, but the drug dealers won't be stopping for free potatoes.)

re: Apparently the homeless and underprivileged aren't suffering all that much.

Oh, they're still suffereing, you just need to get around the roadblocks that the service agencies put up in order to see it.

[Norminn]

clipped

No.....blame the freaking jerks who hire the lawyers. Suppose HD donated stuff to a non-profit org? Non-profit A is very happy to receive the goods (or unhappy that HD doesn't give MORE?) Along comes non-profit B, they want free stuff but can't get any. So they organize a campaign to shop at competitor, or even sue for discrimination.....

Just to add a little reassurance, food stores take out-dated merchandise and donate to shelters and food banks. Have seen them loading up at the local grocery store. When we combined households to move into hubby's condo, there was a good deal of stuff that we did not have room for, after distributing lots of good things to our children. Any time we unloaded, I checked with neighbors who sometimes were glad to get certain items. Whenever I call the city to pick up stuff at the curb, the item is almost always gone before the city comes by. I gained by the same method, when a neighbor discarded a nice little antique oak chest with an ugly coat of paint. Stripped and refinished, nice brass hardware, holds hobby stuff in the guest room.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

The Community Kitchen at which I volunteer gets donated food of various kinds from supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries, etc.

One supermarket used to donate stuff, but the new manager refuses, saying he is afraid of a lawsuit.

Perce

[Tom G]

Or returned to Home Depot for credit. Sears used to destroy stuff to prevent that. People even would shop the garage sales to find old broken Craftsman hand tools and then bring them into Sears for exchange. They started keeping a record of names and would refuse to deal with a person who obviously was doing that. Of course, they would just switch to another Sears store.

[willshak]

Police Departments get a lot of surplus military equipment, including armored and soft skinned vehicles, helicopters, boats, protective equipment, and other military equipment.

[willshak]

on 9/11/2008 12:30 AM [e-mail] said the following:

Should we rearrange those last three words to get the corporation name?