this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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Free returns is great insulation against broken products.
In my experience having to pay 15% of the purchase price just to return something that arrived broken definitely prevented any unnecessary purchases from that company in the future.
That's why the warranty exists. If something arrives broken then the company hasn't actually fulfilled their obligation of sending you the product you ordered in the first place, but that doesn't mean a refund, but a replacement product. It also circumvents any "we'll give a refund but not for the shipping cost" or "we send the replacement but you have to cover the shipping" bullshit - they didn't send what you ordered, it's their responsibility to fix it until you have it working on your hands.
I didn't see it on the article, but I would expect that returns/replacements for broken, defective, or misleading items will still be free. I'm guessing the problem is people using free returns when buyers remorse kicks in.
If that's the case, I imagine they'll suddenly see an uptick of destroyed merchandise coming back. Seems counterproductive because then there's no way to resell it.
I don't know a single company that will charge you for a return if you receive something broken. It just doesn't happen. 95% of our returns are buyer's remorse or they didn't research their needs better. Easier just to buy and return then to do the work.
I've had it happen.
Even on Amazon I've had vendors not want to refund money for broken items without me shipping back at my cost.
I've never paid for it, if push comes to shove I'd dispute it with Amazon and my credit card company.
I paid for a delivered functional product.
Those companies don't last there, believe me. I've been on Amz since they opened to 3rd party sellers and we are a top 500 seller. Literally for any reason we send out replacements or parts because that's how your company succeeds. What I was talking about is the people who abuse the process and there are a lot of them. One warehouse can throw away over 100,000 items a week and there are 100s of warehouses in the US. It's a collosal amount of waste mainly because returns are risk free to the customer.
I bought a frame online from Michaels that arrived broken. I drove to the store, rather than pay to ship it back, and they said they would refund me the price of the frame, but not the shipping I paid for originally. It took a manager (15 minute wait) and many minutes of me insisting I shouldn't have to pay anything for a broken product for them to finally just give up and swipe the card that allowed them to refund my shipping (only as store credit, mind you). They were not happy about it.