We make them all the time. We find something cool, we think it’s perfect for us, we take it home…
And it sucks. It’s defective, maybe it’s just an impersonator of what we really want. Maybe the budgeting failed after all, who knows? Are we stuck with a bum purchase?
Companies do this all the time, too. Get pitched, order a bunch of stuff, ship it out to your locations… And it flops. In two weeks, in five hundred stores, how many get sold? Two! Out of thousands of these things! And you expected an explosion of interest, didn’t you? Now you’re stuck with junk no one wants after all, which is going to sit, and collect dust while it loses value over time. What do you do?
It sucks. But we’ve all been there. Most stores have a grace period where we consumers can bring stuff back if it just doesn’t work right. Sometimes there are fees, but that’s better than having an expensive paper-weight, isn’t it?
Sometimes, companies have the same grace period from their suppliers – it’s far less common, or at least less commonly taken advantage of, but it may be there, if you look. Sure, you waste the shipping costs, but that’s better than terminal devaluation, isn’t it?
Have you ever found yourself between a bad buy and a return policy?