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Comment by kalcode | Hacker News Reader

>If you stop accepting returns

They are trying to stop people who abuse the policies, not returns altogether. The article never says the retailers are making a move to stop returns from everyone. That kinda defeats the point you are trying to make.

>If I can't return an item, I will be much more cautious about buying in the first place.

Sounds like its working then. The point is the customers that feel they don't need to research an item they are purchasing cause they can 'just return it' are the ones they want to be more cautious about buying in the first place cause you are costing them more money.

Really sounds like you are arguing against a scenario that isn't taking place. You are actually bringing up points that made them decide to do this. They can deter constant returners from using returns as a 'try any item you like and return it' and also deter return frauds.

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The main point of accepting returns is to reduce the cognitive overhead and friction of a potential customer's purchasing decision and make them more likely to spend money with you right now. If a retailer doesn't accept returns then potential customers are more likely to shop around for price or selection and become less likely to buy from you at all, and if they do buy from you, it will likely be later, thus costing them some cash flow. Accepting returns makes people buy more stuff and buy it earlier than they would otherwise. And they are more likely to buy it from you specifically.

The primary problem in retail generally isn't revenue or margin, it is cash flow. Creating additional customers or even encouraging customers to purchase sooner than they otherwise would have is a huge win.

The have introduced the possibility that a false positive will prevent a non-abusing customer from processing a return.

"Dozens of shoppers have complained on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and other online forums that they were prevented from making returns despite following the store’s policy."

According to the article, the scenario is taking place, in an arbitrary and capricious fashion, such that BB is making fraudulent claims about its return policy. When shoppers buy there, they expect the policy will be honored; without that expectation, the sale might not have taken place.

Indeed, if you reverse the conditional, you are likely to have a very high percentage of the people who end up returning items attributing a large fraction of their buying decision to the return policy.

Yes their implementation seems to be overly aggressive.

To me if you are saving more money by having this than not, why make it so aggressive? Better to catch the few then catch customers that aren't taking advantage of it and not catch every abuser.

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