No Refunds Fine with Templates, Graphics, Themes but Ebooks??? Whats the difference

[roley]

I dont get it.. why is it fine and widely accepted that if you buy something digital online like a theme, graphics, there are no refunds as its digital

But somehow with ebooks, oh there has to be a refund policy.

I mean lets face it... a person has your ebook and your now out of pocket

And there are a lot of dishonest people online buying products and not wanting to pay for them and just refund trigger happy..

Then throw the retards over at clickbank into the mix and you have one big refund disaster

I mean who in the hell goes into barnes and noble, buys a book and then reads it and comes back and says.. No i wasnt satisfied.. i want a refund

Barnes and noble would say.. Tough.. SUCK IT UP!

Yet somehow online with ebooks, oh we have to give a refund..

Quite frankly its annoying and I'm thinking of no longer offering refunds on digital products and saying on the sales page

" This is a digital product, if you decide after buying it, that you want your money back, im sorry but you wont get it as we have no way of getting our product back, have a good day "

I can understand if there is not ample information on the sales page as to what they are getting but most of the time you can tell the refund people not because they refund within 1 day, but because of the tone of their email

What do you think?

[Alexa Smith]

If you feel so strongly about it (and I don't altogether disagree with you, to be honest), you can always use a ".exe-file" format instead of a PDF for e-books, and then if they ask for a refund you can at least disable their access to their product. It doesn't actually help anyone, of course, but at least you wouldn't resent them having got the thing without paying. I suspect, though, that it's probably worth just tolerating your occasional refunds as part of the now-inescapable "cost of doing business". And you wouldn't want to get a reputation for not allowing refunds, perhaps? There's the goodwill factor to think of, too?

[roley]

Alexa I think i will from now as im tired of all the clickbank freeloading scumbags who buy products only simply to refund them days later. pisses me off. Not everyone is like that and some people see the quality in products and some have more integrity... but its become quite a common practise by people online who buy products through clickbank.

I can understand someone refunding with a good reason but the exuses I have seen over the years have been stupid.

As for getting a reputation for not allowing refunds. I dont give a crap. It hasn't harmed All the leading companies online who do wordpress, joomla themes, flash intros, audio files, videos etc.. as they dont refund as they know they wont get their product back. they have kept their reputation as people accept it.

The only idiots who do it are us internet marketers

So screw goodwill and screw the refunding scumbags - KARMA will come back and bite them in the ass LOL

[BIG Mike]

We actually converted from a 60 day, no questions asked refund policy in January 2009 and never looked back. We've had a few disputes, but routinely win them

[Jason_V]

I think the disconnect comes from actually understanding of WHY ebooks have a refund policy as opposed to graphics or a theme. It's actually a very simple answer.

With graphics or a theme the buyer knows in advance EXACTLY what they are getting.

An ebook, not so much so.

It's not worth cutting your nose off to spite your face. So long as you have a quality product with solid information that really does what the sales letter says it will do; you will experience far less refunds.

As for those who do buy it and ask for a refund just to get it for free it's okay. Many people can tell you on here that the majority of people who get anything for free RARELY EVER actually use it.

I'll be honest I've asked for refunds before for information products. I've always had the good manners to tell the author exactly why I was asking for a refund. I always delete the product from my hard drive.

Does everyone delete it, I doubt it. However, as I said, I doubt they ever even use it. They'll be off buying the next "latest and greatest" from someone else and then asking them for a refund.

PS

You can take books back to Barnes and Noble.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Jason_V

PS

You can take books back to Barnes and Noble.

To exchange them, maybe, I think - not for a cash refund?

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

We actually converted from a 60 day, no questions asked refund policy in January 2009 and never looked back. We've had a few disputes, but routinely win them

I'm not quite with you, Mike. You converted from a 60-day no-questions-asked refund policy to what?

[lakshaybehl]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

I'm not quite with you, Mike. You converted from a 60-day no-questions-asked refund policy to what?

My thoughts exactly... but I'd assume its a no-refund guarantee since Mike has software products.

-Lakshay

[Jason_V]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

To exchange them, maybe, I think - not for a cash refund?

Alexa,

As long as you have a receipt and it doesn't look like it went through WWIII

Here's from their website:

Barnes & Noble Bookstores make it easy to return an item when you are not satisfied.

Simply bring the item and your cash register receipt to your local Barnes & Noble Bookstore for a refund to your original form of payment or, if you have a gift receipt, for a refund as a gift card. Please call your local Barnes & Noble Bookstore for more information.

I've done it before because I got the same book from two different people.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

To exchange them, maybe, I think - not for a cash refund?



I'm not quite with you, Mike. You converted from a 60-day no-questions-asked refund policy to what?

Sorry - to no refunds for any reason! It's clearly stated on every sales page in the same size font and color...

[dtipres]

I think the problem with refunds on digital products is that fact that very often the sales page doesn't really give full disclosure about what the product is exactly. Its not until after you've paid for it that you really find out what you're getting. Sales pages tend to be very vague and full of hype.

As for Clickbank, sometimes I really wonder what their refund rate actually is. They "claim" that its about 1% but I find that very hard to believe, based on my experience as an affiliate reseller of their products. If I had to venture a guess, I'd guess that its more like 20-30%....or more! It would even be higher but some people probably forget about asking for a refund or just don't bother or they aren't aware that they can get one automatically with no questions asked (other than clicking on a multiple choice reason).

[radhika]

Anything digital , payment processors also don't support you. It is a vicious circle. But try to implement few things that can prevent the refunders to use your products again.

Checkout this thread:
Here is how to Protect Your Ebooks - most common question asked here

.

[Josiah]

I sell a couple clickbank products... I think it also has something to do with the niche...

I have a 20% refund rate on one (and it's adamn good pricy just the niche is filled with serial refunders)

and I have a 2% refund rate on another...

The target market is a lot older and I would assume the people to be mire ethical...

Josiah

[Christophe Young]

Wow, I'm seeing a lot of refund threads today. I wonder if the serial refunders are having a party this week.

Mike, did switching to a no refund policy affect conversions at all? I assume not based on your post.

Fact is, as ebook sellers, we don't have to have a refund policy.. unless we sell through Clickbank where we have to adhere to their return policy. We can choose to have a NO refund policy and its probably worth testing to see if it affects conversions.

I might try it myself. I had a refund come in this past week and the email from this guy was one of the MOST bizarre I've ever seen. I've found that of the few refunds I've honored, it's been to people with a generally bad attitude. They try out a new strategy once and if it doesn't immediately work for them, they give up and ask for a refund. Sometimes it takes time but they don't want to put in the effort.

I've learned that refunds are a part of doing business and they are always going to happen. Oh well!

[George Wright]

I like the way Alexa Smith worded it "I don't entirely dissagre with you...."

I'll add to everything else, if you are working through Click Bank you have no choice and if you are working through PayPal and they do a charge back and win it's worse than just giving the refund in the first place.

George Wright

[tomw]

Themes and similar products are considered "software."

Under the terms of various consumer rights acts around the world, software products are one of the few categories codified in a specific provision and given a non-returnable classification based on very specific licensing laws.

You don't actually buy the software. You purchase a license to use it. You *never* actually own any of the software or "themes" that you pay for.

Graphics, such as those purchased from a stock library or that you commission (based on terms agreed at the point of purchase or in advance at the commissioning stage) are also 'sold' in the same way.

You never actually own the image unless you negotiate what's called a "buy out" where nobody else has the right to use it. This is infrequent, but does occur when, say, an ad agency/marketing department wants to use a particular image for their campaign and doesn't want the same image used willy nilly outside of their control giving rise to a potential for other users to tarnish or undermine their brand. In these cases, it's usual to need permission from the photographer/designer as well as the stock library because of the loss of potential income it could bring. It isn't a cheap option.

In all other "normal" cases of "buying" an image, you're paying for usage rights - translated - you're purchasing a license to use the graphics in the manner agreed at the point of sale. Hence the various prices for sizes and uses.

Other types of digital files such as ebooks are not generally sold in this way, but as a "good." As such, they fall into the standard classification and provision as all of the other consumer goods.

Tom

[jrmnlitt]

I don't think there is any way to get around refunds. I understand what you are saying but I believe that providing refunds is just the nature of the beast right now and won't change unless a change across the entire internet market starts refusing refunds.

[TimCastleman]

I stopped offering refunds. Sorry you bought the program, you learned the info and now you want your money back. Don't think so.

Oh and I clearly state - NO REFUNDS - before the person buys.

Does that cost me a few sales, sure it does, but it also means that my stuff doesn't get passed around town as much either and if it does ... well I have ways to track that.

Tim

[Traffic-Bug]

In the case of ebooks, the product you are selling has already been transferred in digital form when you close the sale. After that they shouldnt be asking for refunds anyway, unless you explicitly stated so in the sales letter.

[Ofthemix]

I agree on not giving refunds. Point blank, it's not fair for someone to get something for free (in exclusion of charities and the likes :-p). This may be going a bit far out to a lot of sellers, but I think a good practice when selling ebooks is to put your table of contents on the sales page, that way they'll have a really good idea about what they're going to get before they make the purchase. That gives you a solid excuse not to have to issue a refund. Just my 2 cents.

[Joe Giannetti]

the answer is simple.
if you have a quality product that does not have a overhyped sales page, and your product lives up to everything you state on your sales page you won't get many requests for refunds.

however if you state in your sales page your product will make you a million dollars and it's a worthless pile of crap. then you will get bombed with requests for refunds.
People don't like to get ripped off.

[Marcel Hartmann]

It's not about the eBook, it's about the method. With a program/templates/resource list, the sales copy should be based on facts. People really have no reason to refund template purchases, as they are specs-based, but a method? That's a different machine altogether. Look at the sales copy. If it has ANY hype at all, you can probably count on at least some refunds.

[JohnMcCabe]

I'll cop to asking for refunds on ebooks in the past. On those rare occasions, there have only been two reasons:

1. The product didn't match what was promised on the sales page. In other words, the seller lied to me.

2. On a couple of occasions, the seller has been clever enough to get me to buy the same product twice. On those occasions, I've asked for a refund on the second purchase, rather than "gift" the product to someone else.

[Vaan]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

I'll cop to asking for refunds on ebooks in the past. On those rare occasions, there have only been two reasons:

1. The product didn't match what was promised on the sales page. In other words, the seller lied to me.

2. On a couple of occasions, the seller has been clever enough to get me to buy the same product twice. On those occasions, I've asked for a refund on the second purchase, rather than "gift" the product to someone else.

Hi john,

You're right, some product didn't deliver what have been promised on the salespage,This make the refund rate sky high, and if this condition apply to major digital products out there, i can't guarrante that peoples will buy digital products anymore,

I they do, they will be happy to refund their money once they feel have been cheated so many times buying digital product

Cheers,
Vaan