Had an interesting situation occur during our black friday sale today I thought I’d share. My e-commerce stores return policy is you can return for any reason within 30 days of purchase. We also had our Black Friday sale today which had a pretty substantial discount on certain products. Some of my more conniving customers realized that they could request a return / price adjustment for their item they purchased up to 30 days ago as my return policy states they have 30 days to return the item.
I’m of the mindset I should just take the L on this. Based on the rules I set they are allowed to do this. And customer service / public perception is important. I find the situation both annoying and amusing. I can’t blame them for doing this but I do think there’s something to be learned here. Part of me wants to implement some kind of restocking fee in the future, but also people expect returns to be free these days.
As i’m curious, what would others do in this situation? Suck it up? Try to weasel out of the obligation? How would you craft a return policy in the future to avoid this kind of thing?
You could also consider adding a “price match guarantee” or something similar. Offer to refund any price change in your store for 14-days or 30-days or whatever time period to at least save the hassle to you of them returning & re-purchasing. It also helps customers buy more confidently if sales are common in your store since they know they’re eligible for any upcoming discounts
If you really want to cut it close, you could do the refund as an in-store credit rather than a direct refund, but I’d tread lightly depending on your relationship with your customers. The in-store credit is easier to pull off if you also have a restocking fee because the restocking fee deters the return & repurchase cycle