This is what Walmart has been doing for quite a long time. They will essentially take any return and charge the vendor for it.
My mom used to work as a bookkeeper for a garment company and the owners were thrilled when they landed Walmart. She said dealing with Walmart was a full-time job and they were ruthless in their tactics. They started to receive a large number of returns, and Walmart would deduct the cost (item cost, shipping, processing, etc) from their payments owed. I believe she also said they were Net-90. So you basically ship them 3 months worth of goods and you're left holding your dick for a while.
Most of the items they received back weren't in saleable condition, so it was a loss. The company owners decided to let Walmart deal with those items instead of having them shipped back. It turns out Walmart was donating those items and getting a tax write-off. When my mom figured this out, she suggested that her company do this instead of letting Walmart do it. It helped offset some of the costs of doing business with them.
The point is, when you deal with a distributor like Amazon or Walmart, it can bankrupt you if you aren't ready to deal with the volume and draconian policies. So these small businesses are right to be pissed and scared.
My mom used to work as a bookkeeper for a garment company and the owners were thrilled when they landed Walmart. She said dealing with Walmart was a full-time job and they were ruthless in their tactics. They started to receive a large number of returns, and Walmart would deduct the cost (item cost, shipping, processing, etc) from their payments owed. I believe she also said they were Net-90. So you basically ship them 3 months worth of goods and you're left holding your dick for a while.
Most of the items they received back weren't in saleable condition, so it was a loss. The company owners decided to let Walmart deal with those items instead of having them shipped back. It turns out Walmart was donating those items and getting a tax write-off. When my mom figured this out, she suggested that her company do this instead of letting Walmart do it. It helped offset some of the costs of doing business with them.
The point is, when you deal with a distributor like Amazon or Walmart, it can bankrupt you if you aren't ready to deal with the volume and draconian policies. So these small businesses are right to be pissed and scared.