Ralf Hastedt gets deliveries from Amazon every day. Sometimes up to six truckloads in a day. Most of these are returns, i.e. goods that have been returned by customers and that Amazon can no longer sell to their own customers. Ralf takes delivery of toys, telephones, clothes, baby buggies and much more every day. He has however a well-rehearsed team of 180 employees as support.
Ralf is the CEO of Avides Media AG, a company that has been operating returns management for Amazon for 17 years. It all started in his garage. Today, Avides Media AG has five locations in Germany, England and Poland.
What happens to your returns?
Customers shopping at Amazon should be satisfied with their purchases and have no need to return anything. That's why we offer many services that help customers make the right purchase decision
Crank in the goods cycle
When a customer returns their goods to Amazon, they are inspected by an Amazon employee. Depending on the condition, Amazon then sells the products again as new or as used goods on Amazon Warehouse - or they go as a donation to the innatura charity platform. Here you will find detailed information about our returns process.
Another way is to return the goods to Avides Media AG. "We identify, sort and inspect returned items and bring them back into the goods cycle," says Ralf. Read more [DE]
Bringing returned goods back into circulation is good for us, good for Amazon, good for customers and good for the environment.
This makes sense not only economically, but also ecologically. "Sometimes the products do not need much more than new packaging because they are unused and function properly."
If products are damaged or have other defects, they go to a specialist company for repair.
Certain items, such as a special robotic vacuum cleaner, can also be repaired directly by Avides employees.
Long life cycles are worthwhile
"Nobody has an interest in just throwing away goods. That's why we prepare the items to the point that other dealers or we ourselves can resell them," says Ralf.
The online trade has increased the demand for service providers who process returns. Ralf and his team were among the first companies in Germany to have developed a solution here and worked together with Amazon right from the start.
"We are proud to have found ways, some of which greatly extend the life cycle of a product," said Ralf. "That's good for us, good for Amazon, good for customers and good for the environment."
