He discovered that it cost less to make small batches, since making small batches eliminated the carrying costs of huge inventories required by mass production techniques.
In one of the simplest scenarios, the parents buy and keep an apartment in their name and agree to pay the monthly carrying costs, and the child lives there as a family member, not a renter.
When the returned product is re-entered into the inventory ledger, it starts incurring inventory carrying costs, and takes up warehouse space.