If you don't have 10% returns then you aren't tryin!

If I had a 10% refund rate, I would examine my promotional piece for accuracy because

I was obviously over-promising and under-delivering.

It may be true about different degrees of customer satisfaction and whatnot. Though, now it is You who is making the assumptions.

The answers given are opinions. Each as valid as Sugarman's. At least, the opinions given here can be made clearer if needs be. Sugarman's quote doesn't do that... Sugarman is not here to make what he said more clear. All we have is your interpretation of it... and your interpretation is as valid as everyone else's.

Also, lets consider the FTC aspect. If you are dis-satisfying at least 10% of your customers enough that they ask for a refund, how many also complain to the FTC about you and your product?

All variables considered, with a 10% refund rate, you are going to get complained about.

So you have to ask yourself... is making one person in ten unhappy with you and your business a good thing to be doing? Is making a large number of people unhappy so as to generate FTC complaints a good things for you and your business? And is generating so much bad word-of-mouth good for you and your business?

I would rather have fewer sales and a lower refund rate, than to annoy ever increasing numbers of people just to turn a buck. That is MY opinion. Sugarman can annoy as many as HE wants to. He is him and I am me. We both have opinions on the matter and conduct our businesses accordingly.

As for apparel... come on Mike... don't start picking and choosing industries to help strengthen Sugarman's point. From what I can tell, Sugarman's statement is aimed at a general market. Apparel by mail has many things going against it that other "general" market products do not - color, size, how it looks on, how clean the item is when it arrives, any pulled stitches, and a market known for buying, wearing once and returning.

Lets apply Sugarman's 10% rule to other industries...

Cars... Ford, how do you feel about getting a 10% request for refund rate? Out of business and sued left, right and center most likely.

Tires. Is a 10% refund rate good for you?

Appliances.

Sony, want a 10% refund rate on the PlayStation? Nintendo? Microsoft?

Sugarman may be comfortable wanting to create so many unsatisfyied people it generates a 10% refund rate. That's him.

You may be comfortable with that too. And that's you.

I am not comfortable with it. So are others in this thread. And as we are each in charge of what our respective businesses do and how we want to run them, what we do in our business is as valid as what Sugarman does in his.

Sugarman is obviously more concerned with bigger bucks because he is willing and eager to make more people unsatsified. And others are more concerned with customer satisfaction.

As Jim Straw says, sort of... everyone is right and everyone is wrong.

As with all things... take what you can use and discard the rest.

This is one bit of Sugarman advice I will be discarding based on the available evidence and how I want to conduct business.

Michael Ross

P.S. Mike, you do know it is against credit card regulations to issue refund checks when the purchase was made via credit card, don't you? You could be risking your merchant ability by doing this.


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