My wife has been addicted to watching dumpster diving videos where people end up finding brand new expensive things thrown away by retailers. It made me remember reading somewhere that the reason they do this is because it’s cheaper for them to throw away or destroy their inventory than it is to give it away or sell at discount. HOW???
I don’t see how they could possibly save money by destroying inventory rather than putting it on extreme discount. Surely they could make more money selling at an extreme discount versus no money at all by destroying .
In: Economics
A few reasons:
– By the time the decision is made to throw it away, it’s usually already been on discount for awhile and didn’t sell. Rather than continue waiting, they cut their losses and trash it.
– Some stores would rather throw it away then sell it *too* cheap because it encourages people not to pay full price. Folks just wait around until it goes on clearance for super cheap.
– Some brands have price restrictions that don’t allow a store to sell the item for less than $X, because doing so would “cheapen” their brand name.
– Many items are seasonal and once the season is over, the store knows it won’t sell until the same time next year. Storing something for a year takes up valuable space that could be used for more profitable inventory.
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