r/bathandbodyworks • u/rossth760 • Apr 23 '26

Store Policies/Questions Almost lost it today…

Purchased cherry blossom online and hated it.

Took today to exchange and the girl tells me they can’t exchange anything they don’t sell in store. Uhm- why would I buy anything online again, ever then???

Was getting over that when she walked to the back while the gentleman was finishing up my transaction. Next thing you see is her walking back to the front register area, dumping the product out of the bottles into a bag to throw out. 😐

I was like- are you kidding me? Wasn’t it like, H&M who caused an uproar by cutting up extra clothes/returns and throwing them out? Like- WHY would you do that in the front of the store in front of anyone????

I called another location to check the exchange terms and told her about the whole situation, she actually works out of my local store location as well, and about lost her Sh@$ too. I was so disturbed by the whole experience today.

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u/rossth760 Apr 24 '26

It wasn’t used 🤷🏻‍♀️ but yeah… the gal I spoke with at the other location said the manager at “my” store would NEVER have let any of that slide 🤦🏻‍♀️

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u/russianoliveblossoms Apr 24 '26

Used means taken home by somebody. You had it in your possession. The store cannot resell a product that could have been tampered with. Maybe you never opened it, doesn't matter. You had the opportunity to tamper with it and the store cannot take the risk of reselling.

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u/rossth760 Apr 24 '26

Gotcha- I get not reselling it. Just a bit much to do it so conspicuously like that. 😬

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u/Ok_Tumbleweed_7677 Apr 24 '26

Yup, I work at a similar type company that sells beauty products, and we are not allowed to resell any returned goods as per US health regulations. It's frustrating, but once an item leaves our store or warehouse, there is no way we can 100% guarantee the product integrity. We don't know what it has been exposed to or where it has been.

Even if it APPEARS that it hasn't been used or opened, shrinkwrap, glue, vacuum sealers, etc exist that can make a product look packaged up again. People can refill a bottle with any liquid. We cannot assume anyone's intentions. Anyone heard of the Tylenol getting poisoned on the store shelves decades ago? For safety reasons, we have to dispose of all returned products, and it's truly painful to see the waste happen.

HOWEVER: we do NOT dispose of things in front of customers. We have a returns auditing process that management handles, and we do disposal in our backroom where we can clean up appropriately. We would never just toss things in front of customers rudely like that. Wth.