[nmstoker]

Why on Earth can people return these for non-fault reasons?! It's the other customers who bear the cost to cover this - like indecisive ditzy clothes shoppers who order huge numbers of items knowing they'll return 90% of them.

[timvdalen]

Why wouldn't you be able to return anything you buy if it doesn't meet your expectations? It looks like Apple's return window (that's called very generous in a sibling comment) is just the minimum allowed by the law, here.

[nmstoker]

It will vary by jurisdiction but in the UK you can return something if faulty or if not suited for the purpose sold and there are some distance selling protections, but just not liking it isn't generally a valid reason.

I suspect in the US it's more lax but the whole caveat emptor thing is out the window if you can arbitrarily return things - for worn products they won't even be directly resellable.

[nh2]

When we went to test it in an Apple store a few days ago, Apple staff could not answer product questions such as "does it support WebXR".

The in-person demo of the Vision Pro in the Apple Store is scripted to a few actions and apps that the user is allowed to open under supervision, and nothing else.

E.g. you should not open a website of your choice in Safari.

Apple staff said "we cannot tell you what the device can or cannot do, and we are not allowed to let you try it it out here in the Apple Store; you need to first buy it and try it out at home. If you find it cannot do what you want, you can return it."

With this approach, it makes sense that all returns are accepted.

[jherskovic]

Allow me to quote myself

"Even for a technological tour de force, 5K is a lot of dough. If I used it, and loved it, I’d keep it. But for discomfort, actual eye pain, looking through a periscope, and the inevitable resulting gathering-dust-in-a-corner? I’m not insane. It has to go back. I’m an early adopter, but not a throw-away-5-kilodollars early adopter."

Not all problems become evident in a carefully-curated demo at a well-lit store, either.

[zamadatix]

Beyond the individual return you have to look at how many additional sales this generates (e.g. from the "gee it's nice but I'm not sure I want to bet $5,000 I'll like it 10 days from now" folks) vs the retention rate of these additional sales (e.g. "Well x% do decide to return it because they didn't like it) in combination with your per sale margin and restock costs. I.e. if you just look at the individual return it seems stupid, if you look at the overall sales picture it's often a way to generate more profit.

Or, another way to put it, if it's so certainly causing a loss other customers have to bear why would the company promote the return policy and lose out on that margin from paying customers?

[chankstein38]

For one, Amazon actually encourages that behavior because people are used to trying things on in a store and not buying the things they don't like.

Second, because it's a $5000 thing that was not clearly advertised and was over-marketed to the point where people are disappointed because it's not the magic they were sold. I feel like they'd have sold 0 of them if they didn't offer easy fast refunds.

[nozzlegear]

Apple's return policy has always been very generous. I often buy their new products to see if I'll like them, and if I don't then I know I can just return them within 14 days for a full refund. It's netted them more than a few sales from me.

[OJFord]

In the UK (and EU maybe?) that's not 'very generous', that's just 'distance selling regulation'. (Though as the name implies it wouldn't be mandatory for in-store purchases.)

Besides, you could buy your Apple products from Amazon instead and get ..I think it's 30?

[nozzlegear]

I should clarify, it’s generous for the US. =P I’m not sure about the Amazon return policy in the US either, I don’t buy from them very much. I dont think they let US customers return purchases with no questions asked, there has to be a reason such as the product being damaged? I could be wrong though, like I said, I don’t purchase from Amazon much.

[OJFord]

I'm fairly sure Amazon is 30 days globally, you have to give a reason yeah, but I've never had that result in anything other than instant generation of return label - I think it's for their accounting/OEM feedback purposes, not adjudicating return legitimacy. Much like you're saying about Apple, they get a lot of my business (even when I know they're not the absolute cheapest or quickest/easiest) because they make returns easy in the event I need it. eBay or AliExpress for example would have to be significantly cheaper to sway me.

[nmstoker]

If they're really worried about deterring potential buyers for a high price item, maybe rental could be an option?

[causal]

I mean, sometimes people need to try on clothes before they can be sure it will fit? Who exactly are you picturing here when you say "ditzy"?

You act like this is taking money out of others' wallet- imagine how much money shoppers would lose if they had no recourse when a product didn't perform as expected. It doesn't need to be broken to be disappointing, and returns are one of the few tools consumers have to protect themselves from companies that oversell and under-deliver.

[nmstoker]

There's a distinction between mis-selling (where returns are obviously legitimate) and being disappointed.