return policy and guarantees

[paulw1283]

So what do you guys think of promises such as "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" and "no question on returns". I could see they might make a customer more willing to purchase your product but it might also cut into your profit significantly. There's a lot of dead loss in the process such as opened packages and wasted shipping, time,etc...

And assuming the product is something that sells for $20, so it's not a major purchase or anything. Would people even bother returning it for $20 especially if they are responsible for shipping it back?

Don't get me wrong, my product is by no means inferior or something that people are going to return, but no matter what, there always will be people that likes to return stuff.

What's your opinion on whether to make promises like that or not? How about not mentioning any return policy at all?
Thanks

[metagistics]

In my business, I work a lot of returns processing for my customers. Couple of things to ponder:
1. Is the return worth salvaging. In a lot of instances, the cost to rework the product doesn't justify reworking it, so we just receive and discard.
2. Consumers, if unhappy with the product, don't like to have to spend postage to return it. They are already unhappy, and if #1 is the case, better to just refund purchase price and let them keep the product anyway. No sense making them madder by having to cough up $5 for postage etc.
3. I've seen what consumers return sometimes. I've seen people return other products under and RMA then get mad when they don't get credit back.
4. The guarantee should be used to diagnose problems with your product. If a consumer is unhappy, use it as a tool to learn what you can do better.
5. "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" is a marketing slogan to instill confidence in your product.

Hope this info helps