Are you going to return an item that you otherwise wouldn’t have returned out of pure spite?
Basically, unless a nice instruction would sway you from your intended course, a strident order isn’t really doing more harm.
More to the point, maybe the numbers come out in favor of strident orders that prey on the confused who believe they must “stop”. I wouldn’t be surprised.
I reckon most of that is because the manufacturer would rather help the consumer directly with their product instead of trusting the retailer to do it. You may or may not be surprised at how many people return things simply because they have no clue how to use them.
I’m actually sure it has nothing to do with “helping the consumer”, it’s that these items come in boxes that are impossible to reassemble and dealing with the headache of having defective merchandise sent back to them from the point of sale strongly encourages them to make all sales final.
That is, i’ve never seen that advice in goods that aren’t easily returned.
But the stores aren’t the ones putting the STOP labels on those items. That’s the product’s manufacturer’s doing. A great majority of opened items returned to stores end up getting sent back to the vendor anyway, specifically because they’re no longer brand new, so I don’t think it’s any sort of laziness issue.
I’m pretty sure it’s a money thing. The cost of customer support/repair for the item (e.g., an A/C unit) is substantially less than having the item returned from the store, where it may be a total loss for the manufacturer. This is particularly true when the item may not be defective at all, but the customer simply can’t get it to work.
When BFG was still around, their video cards all had that slip of paper in them. Thing was, you never had to use them. Their shit was tight. I miss them.
I think another aspect is that when these products get returned to a store, there’s a big ledger in the shop’s database saying, “Product returned due to fault!” And all that get’s marked against the manufacturer when it’s time to renegotiate supply deals and pricing terms, and even if the shop is going to continue to carry the line.
I don’t know what the story is in America, but over here we have pretty strict consumer protection legislation that says your contract is with the shop not the manufacturer. If the manufacturer wants to offer an improved warranty over and above the shop’s that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t negate what the shop has to offer according to statute. That came into play with my parents buying a TV this weekend. The shop we went to that came out on top was a locally owned shop (big plus in it’s favour,) with knowledgable staff (another plus,) that didn’t hard sell (big plus,) that offered to administer the manufacturers five year guarantee. So if something went wrong four and a half years down the line, a quick call to a local shop just up the road from them would get things sorted.
It’s actually a pretty simple equation from a manufacturer’s perspective.
Let’s say I make Blu-Ray players. These things are easy for most anyone to get plugged in and working, but I’ll be you I receive a constant stream of perfectly functional machines from various retailers. Why? Because moms and dads get them as birthday or holiday gifts and simply can’t figure out how to set them up. They work fine, or maybe they need a small tweak, and guess what, I’ve got a whole room of people in India I pay specifically to help with such tasks.
So, instead of having to do something with this stream of perfectly functional boxes I’m getting shipped to me every day (since I can’t re-sell them as new), I spend 2 cents and try to get people to call me if they’re having problems rather than just return the damn thing to the store.
So, if you are a moderately technologically inclined person, feel free to ignore such documents. You know how to find the solution to whatever problem you’re having anyway. You will probably be able to figure out if the problem you have is fixable by you or a technician and a call center employee reading off an outdated script is going to be no help to you.
I’ve only ever seen this note in some items I’ve bought through Costco. I’ve ignored the notice and brought them back to Costco the 2 times I’ve had to return items with such notices. The first were patio lanterns that had rust spots. The second was for a backyard drum composter that had a badly designed hatch which would flip open as the drum was turned.
Well I do ignore, and I agree about the parents :)
The point about the room full of friendly Indians (or, in the case of Verizon tech support, the lovely Eastern European sounding women delighted to help me kill time but not resolve anything) is that it might take me 30 minutes to return a product that doesn’t work immediately and it might take 2 hours to get the product working with the help of tech support.
The amount of time it takes me to return Blu Ray Player X and exchange it for Blu Ray player Y is easily quantifiable. The time it takes me to resolve a technical issue by talking to support varies wildly. It might take 5 minutes and it might take 5 hours.
So I totally understand the calculus the manufacturers are using when they decide to warn me sternly not to return to the retailer. I just have very little incentive to listen to their advice. And the advice itself makes me even less inclined.
I used them once - my 1000w PSU was going wonky, once upon a time.
I called them up, explained what was happening and what I attempted. They processed my replacement in two days and I had a new PSU in four. They never required me to send in the old one, and I was impressed. I miss them too. sigh
