What happens to returned pillows?

As much as we’d like to say we never get a return, the inevitable and undeniable fact of business is that you can’t please all of people all of the time. Indeed, it is often said that if you can please 80% of your customers you’re doing well. I’m happy to say that we do please well in excess of 80% of our customers and we get many kind letters to that affect. That being said; we do get returns at a rate of about 5%.

These returns can be sent to us for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the original problem has healed on its own and the pillow wasn’t needed before it arrived. Other people simply don’t get on with the pillow and that is an entirely fair and valid reason, and is why we have what we believe to be a fair and honest returns policy.

When a returned pillow arrives back we’re left with the question of what to do with it. We would never send a returned pillow out to a customer, yet we don’t want to waste what is otherwise a perfectly good pillow.

We’re based in Liverpool which people in the UK with be familiar with and people abroad may know from bands like the Beatles. It’s a city rich in heritage and culture but also a city which experienced a decline as we moved into a post-industrial economy. That decline has been reversed over the last decade however much of this reversal was due to EU and central government funding, both of which are being cut. The former due to Brexit and the latter due to this government’s policy of austerity. This reduction in funding has had the knock-on effect of squeezing local councils’ budgets which has, amongst other factors, created an epidemic of homelessness.

This can be seen most starkly in Liverpool city centre where the amount of homelessness has increased in a most visible way. The streets are now lined with the destitute. Their stories are often quite similar. A loss of a job, a breakdown of a relationship, money for rent runs out and before long – they’re on the street. “There but for the grace of God go I”.

So the only sensible thing to do with returned pillows is to clean them if they have been opened and then give them to our local homeless charity, The Whitechapel Centre.

These can then be used by people that can benefit directly from them rather than putting them into a landfill. It’s a win-win for the environment, local people and my conscience.

Please click the image below to go to The Whitechapel Centre’s website to see what you can do.

Tim