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> Target has already bought your products from you when Target sells them to customers

This is not true for all products. Some are sold under a pay-per-scan model, where the product is owned by the supplier up until the barcode is scanned at checkout, whereupon it is immediately purchased by the store and sold to the consumer.

For other products, suppliers may also be required to accept unsold goods for a full refund of the store’s purchase price.

Stores are marketplaces too, and shelf space – particularly the valuable shelf space like end caps – is not free.




There are products like that, but to my knowledge, there's not a lot of them and it tends to be certain specialized categories. The only example I can think of where the supplier will refund the product if it doesn't sell is live plants.


Another example of a product that commonly has a full refund clause is books.

But pay-per-scan is much more common. Examples include everything from trading cards to makeup to sandwich bread. The supplier will often restock these products themselves, so the store doesn't even need to track inventory.


I'm having trouble finding any solid numbers on what percent of products are sold pay per scan. I just know that in the retail stores I've worked in, the only examples I know of are live plants and possibly aquarium fish.




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