Things that may cost you customers?

[Gary Smith]

As I sit here, I wonder how many people out there do the 'due diligence' thing. I know that when I go and look at a product I have a look at the vendor specific things such as privacy and disclaimers. I went to one such site today and it looked like a lot of time was spent on the sales copy, but not much time on everything else. It surprised me because the product is a well known, good quality product and the owner of the site is also well known. I'm not going to say who it is either publicly or privately as it was really just a bit of a case study I was doing and I've only ever seen/heard good things about the site owner. I will most likely email him though and point him to this forum thread as I'm trying to be helpful rather than malicious.

Anyway, here's what I found and/or gathered from what I saw.

The disclaimer offered a warranty but also said 'All remedies are limited to the United States'. It had a copyright notice at the bottom that said it was for an entirely different web site. Okay, so I'm not going to shoot someone for copying and pasting but if I was on a point scoring mission then the site just lost a couple of points.

The earnings disclaimer was fairly standard except that it had the phrase 'If you rely upon our figures, you must accept the risk of not doing as well' 3 times. I guess that it gets the message across but after the second time it starts to sound like a forboding . The earnings disclaimer also had a copyright notice that was for another site.

The privacy policy was dated 2005, had the same, unrelated copyright info and only referred to the company as 'the company' or 'we' - no actual company or contact details. The title of the privacy policy page was 'New Page 1'.

There was also a 'terms of service' page with the same unrelated copyright info and a title of 'New Page 1'.

I realise I'm being a bit pedantic but, to me at least, these aren't things that are going to encourage me to buy. The limitation of warranty to the USA only is a show stopper but the other things are just a little bit hap-hazard. I think that as time goes by, the 'savvyness' of the average viewer is increasing. Five years ago you could expect most people to totally ignore disclaimers, privacy policies etc but I think that is changing - though I have nothing to back that up other than the fact that consumer groups and government departments are encouraging due diligence.

Am I the only one who notices these little things? What do other warriors think/see/do?

[chrisgarrett]

I have started to think a lot of sales letters don't get read, let alone the rest of the copy I wonder what percentage of people scroll down to the price and buy button?

[CliveG]

I notice these things, so you are not the only one. Do they influence my decisions? Probably, but if someone has produced a good product and skimped on the website that may not necessarily matter to me, but if the warranty applied only to the USA I would not buy the product, however good it looked.

[makemoney-u]

I also notice these things as well, and I feel that if this little effort has been put into the sales letter, most likely the same amount of effort has been put into the product. I am sure that there are times when the sale is still made as people may not notice this, but I am pretty observant about those things, and they are sales killers in my opinion.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Smith

The limitation of warranty to the USA only is a show stopper

That's an extraordinary one, isn't it? I've certainly never seen that before.

I can't help wondering if the owner of the site actually knows that that's on his site (or just had someone do "all this stuff" and never actually looked at any of it himself)?!

[Michael Oksa]

Don't quote me, as this is NOT legal advice. 'All remedies are limited to the United States' probably means that IF it would go to court, that the proceedings would be held in a US court. The warranty is still good anywhere, but if you think you may have to sue, then my guess is that no warranty would make a difference.

On the other hand...

It's a given that MOST people don't read terms of service, privacy policies and disclaimers, but SOME do.

The "small print" should be written for those who DO read it; not as though NOBODY will read it (otherwise, why include it at all?).

All the best,
Michael

[sbucciarel]

I never read any of that stuff. I read the headline, the price and then go back to some details if the offer still interests me.

[la dominatrix]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

I never read any of that stuff. I read the headline, the price and then go back to some details if the offer still interests me.

YO tambien
La dominatrix