Aim to Donate, Not Destroy, Merchandise

H&M, the international fashion retailer, is enduring heavy criticism now. A graduate student at City University of New York found bags of unused H&M clothing on the streets of New York. It turns out that staff at the store on 34th Street had taken box cutters and razors to excess merchandise and then trashed the remains.
     Why weren’t these clothes donated to charity? How could the fingers be cut off gloves and insulation ripped from jackets at a time that NYC has been struggling to open up shelter space for the homeless in the face of freezing winter temperatures? Outrage exploded in the media and across the Internet. Considering that H&M has stores in about 35 countries, reaction was international.
     H&M replied that over the past year, they’ve donated about 500,000 clothing items to myriad charitable organizations. A spokeswoman said destroying unsold clothing was against company policy, she was unaware that it was being done, and the company would now check to be sure no other H&M stores were doing it.
     Perhaps left unsaid was that retailers need to take care when giving away merchandise: The unscrupulous could get hold of items and try to return them for store credit. If the donated merchandise works its way to potential customers, this would undercut sales.
     We’ll see how it plays out for H&M. Comments on the New York magazine site—posted by people who claim to have worked for the company—say that the spokeswoman lied and the policy was in fact to destroy clothing which could have been donated. Other postings claim that a great many other retailers do the same sort of thing.
     Whatever the outcome, this is a high-profile time for you to take care that whenever you dispose of merchandise, you aim to donate, not to destroy.