EVER wondered what happens when you return something to online retail giant Amazon?
Chances are it might end up in a warehouse outside Skibbereen, where an enterprising American runs a thriving business.
Chris Mason runs Clearance Items Ltd, where he buys items that are sent back to Amazon at auction – everything from toys to smart phones to car parts – and sells them on.
Originally from LA and previously working in advertising, he holidayed with his family in Ireland in 2015.
‘We spent four months here, two and a half of which were in West Cork. We loved it so much, we decided to move here permanently in 2016, and we’ve never looked back,’ said Chris.
The family live near Schull, and around two years ago his son Ben was watching a YouTube video of a man selling a palette of Amazon returns, which inspired Chris to set up the business.
‘As a concept it was really foreign to me at the time, but it seemed really interesting,’ he said.
While lots of people might assume items returned to Amazon are resold, this is generally only the case if the packaging is intact, otherwise they will usually end up in landfill, or are auctioned online to people like Chris.
A minimum purchase at auction is typically four palettes which can contain from 200-1,000 unique items. Shipped from Spain, the cost to Chris could range from €5,000 (for a mix of shoes, clothes, toys) to €15,000 (for electronics).
In the warehouse with staff members Richard Kingston, Teddy Gallagher and Conor O’Donnell.
His 500sq m warehouse is located on the Drimoleague Road outside Skibbereen, with floor to ceiling racks stacked with items including shoes, toys, clothes, electronics, and car parts.
He employs three people who, along with himself, evaluate the stock when it arrives to ensure everything is in working order.
‘I usually know what’s coming on the palettes, but I couldn’t always be sure of the condition,’ he said.
‘There was one occasion where I bought a bunch of TVs, but when they arrived a lot had cracked screens. I contacted repair shops all over Ireland but no one would touch them. You live and learn over time! You get better at seeing where the value is,’ he said.
As well as selling from his website items.ie, he sells through Ebay, which he said had been great for the business.
‘You can have the best website in the world but if no one knows it’s there, it won’t be much good to you. To succeed, you need a healthy advertising budget which a new business like mine doesn’t have. But I can put all our inventory up on Ebay at no cost and suddenly it’s in front of millions of potential customers. The fee is collected when you sell,’ he said.
His customer base is currently around one quarter Irish with the rest mainly from the UK, and a growing number from Germany and France.
Chris is also a great believer in giving back and has already donated €50,000 worth of items to the charity Oxfam.
‘It doesn’t always make economic sense to resell some items so we donate these to Oxfam. They put a unique barcode on them and we can track the items in shops to see where they end up and see the impact we’re making.’
West Cork is now home to Chris, his wife Laurie and children Ben (11) and Emilia (15).
‘We love it here and the way things are going, in the next six months I think I’ll need to hire another employee,’ he said.
