Be Excellent To Each Other

If a product is sent to someone on loan, and returns to the manufacturer unopened, as factory sealed. Can it be sold as new, or should it be sold as returned?
What if the factory then open it and test it to their standard manufacturing procedure?

Are you the manufacturer? I think you can do what you like, frankly.

Err, maybe!

Okay, strange, I thought there would be regulations about such things.v Thanks.

I'm not 100% sure there's no regulations, but certainly, if the thing in question is still sealed and the packaging looks like new then I'd have no concern about sending it out to another customer.

The likes of Gamestation used to have no qualms about selling on items that had been returned under their 10-day no quibble returns policy as brand new, provided there were no scratches on the disk or damage to the packaging.

If it's sealed, it can be sold as new. If it's opened—even if it's then unused—it should be sold as refurb or equivalent.

'Should be' in your opinion, but is there any regulation to state this?

I suspect you're talking about shiny consumer goods like Apple's. Certainly in that case you'd be outraged if your "new" product had been opened by someone else first, but if we're talking about low volume, high cost scientific equipment or something, who cares, as long as it works?

Also in this latter case it is likely to be cost effective to re-test and have someone spend time restoring it to "as new" boxed condition whereas it may not be for a £1000 laptop.