No no, that’s fine. I agree. We should be pushing companies to be less wasteful. I was just commenting that it isn’t just Coach, it is EVERYONE, and the reason they do it is usually because of money.
The thing is, we could probably get Walmart, Target, etc to donate items they can’t resell, or even box them up for warehouse resllers (unsold clearance items usually go that route). Or get grocery stores to donate food they have to throw away, but could be edible if processed that day to a food bank.
But with Coach, they don’t want that. They do make nice, well made products, but they are also a luxury brand and you are over paying for that product due to the brand. As someone else up thread said, they don’t want unsold merchandise to end up at a discount seller. It cheapens the brand.
Though if enough people dumpster dive those bags, what I would do is repair it, but make it very obvious, with suture like stitches. Frankenstein bags. It would be an interesting look, IMO. You might even get people start to have it done intentionally to their bags. Think ripped jeans aesthetic.
When I ran large conglomerate food industry units in the Bay Area, the mind set was just trash anything that is not sold [daily that was tons of useable food], it took me years of hard work to turn that attitude around [using the tax write off method], and the minute I left they went right back to throwing any unused food into the waste can.
I think a tax penalty for destroying new merchandise, especially if it was imported, and large enough to really discourage it might be good. Say, base it on the retail price rather than the manufacturing cost. Not perfect but that stone hits a few of the birds.
I think a good step would be not allowing purposefully destroyed goods as a tax write off. But not sure how you can tax penalty them for goods they destroyed on their own. I still see someone like Coach destroying unsold goods before allowing them to sell at a discounted price. They would just eat the cost, and see it as protecting the brand. MAYBE allow something like Nordstrom Rack to sell them. Does Nordstrom Rack have Coach bags? Hmm, not now, just watches, perfume, and shoes.
When working as a “Stocker” at Victoria’s Secret as a youngster (really) I often was told to bin stock that was not selling, or when advertising campaigns changed and we remodeled the store, or holiday season. Lots of waste. Naturally the angel wings for the mannequins and a 15 foot tall poster of Tyra Banks in her undies came home with me. BTW it is impossible to peel a g-string off a mannequin without feeling like a pervert; aren’t you glad I share?
It’s certainly unrealistic to think it would happen in our current environment, but accounting is done for all of that stuff so it would just be a matter of making it a required disclosure. Call it a regulatory fine instead of a tax penalty, same end result on different piece of paper.
I don’t think there’s any major technical hurdle to overcome, just a lack of political will. Which is pretty hard to overcome.
Yep. I have a number of books that state that inside along with the LOC information: “If you purchased this book without a cover, it was reported as destroyed to the publisher and neither they nor the author received any money for it.” or words to that effect.
How can anyone get upset by this? No way is a maker of $5000 handbags going to be selling their surplus in the “outlet store.” Now, instead of shredding and throwing in the dumpster, they’ll shred, throw acid on, burn, and securely dispose of.
I think much of the upset comes from the additional, gratuitous waste and pollution from one of the most ecologically unsound industries. Zero benefit, massive harm.
This would be my vote. These prestige brands are a pox on the human race. The merchandise is not substantially better made than anything else. It is literally expensive because they say it should be expensive, then people buy it so you know they bought something expensive. It’s such a transparent phony status exercise that is adding no value to the world.
That they then greenwash on top of it all is just insulting.
