It's an item that has been returned to the manufacturer, who then cleans, quality checks, and restores the item to like-new condition. There are several reasons why a product might be returned to the manufacturer:
-- The box was opened before the product was sold. (Once the box is opened, the item can no longer be sold as new.)
-- The item was purchased by a customer who then returned it, either because it was the wrong product or for whatever reason the customer decided he or she didn't want it. Such an item may have been used for a short period of time, or it may not have been used at all.
-- The product had a cosmetic blemish, the box was dented, or there was some other minor defect.
The manufacturer cleans the product, performs a thorough inspection, makes any necessary repairs, ensures that it meets all factory specifications, and deems it in like-new condition. "Like-new condition" means that the item may contain cosmetic blemishes but is otherwise in perfect working order.

Factory Refurbished, Remanufactured or Reconditioned products offer great value, with prices typically much lower than retail
(Note that prices and availability are subject to change.)
Factory-reconditioned products are also of very high quality. In fact, reconditioned items typically have very low return rates compared to retail goods because they've been so carefully inspected. (Quite often, manufacturers will inspect only one or two items out of every "lot" of brand-new merchandise. A thorough inspection is given to each and every factory-reconditioned product.) Amazon.com's team of buyers selects only the highest-quality reconditioned products from well-known manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, KitchenAid, Minolta, and DeWalt.
All products carry a manufacturer's warranty of at least 1 year and are backed by Amazon.com's 30-day return policy.

These products may or may not come in their original packaging, depending on the manufacturer and the product. Some items will arrive in a regular retail box with a sticker that indicates it's been reconditioned or refurbished, while others may be repackaged by the manufacturer in a plain brown or white box.

The terms "factory-reconditioned", "reconditioned", "remanufactured" and "refurbished" are largely interchangeable--they'll sometimes vary depending on the manufacturer and the product line. Rest assured that all such products on our site meet the same factory-reconditioned standards outlined above.