Refund requestsm annoying!

49 replies
nothing more annoying than someone buying my product and immediately returning it, not sure which is more annoying, same day refund request or one a month later.

I know there are people here who will say "well your product sucks, that's why", well it does NOT suck. its a true wealth of knowledge, 152 pages on how to do short sales.

anyway..anyone else deal with this crap??!!! they just buy it, download everything, then ask for refund and i HAVE to give it to them, i have no choice!
#annoying #refund #requestsm
  • Profile picture of the author Robert Michael
    Originally Posted by HotDamnShortSales View Post

    nothing more annoying than someone buying my product and immediately returning it, not sure which is more annoying, same day refund request or one a month later.

    I know there are people here who will say "well your product sucks, that's why", well it does NOT suck. its a true wealth of knowledge, 152 pages on how to do short sales.

    anyway..anyone else deal with this crap??!!! they just buy it, download everything, then ask for refund and i HAVE to give it to them, i have no choice!
    u should start promoting/selling products that their service ends and they can't keep it if they cancel.. simple really.. lol this is why i dont sell ebooks or anything like that.. they can easily rip u off and u cant do a damn thing about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by HotDamnShortSales View Post

    nothing more annoying than someone buying my product and immediately returning it

    Let me spell it out: you can't have refunds unless people are buying your products.

    It's up to you which one you think is more important. And if you really can't stand the refunds, just stop selling anything, and they'll go away.
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    • Profile picture of the author MattVit
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


      Let me spell it out: you can't have refunds unless people are buying your products.

      It's up to you which one you think is more important. And if you really can't stand the refunds, just stop selling anything, and they'll go away.
      I had to chuckle at this. It's true, but perhaps he is complaining about the volume of refunds he is receiving. Though, on the other hand, he complains about whether he hates instant refunds or month-later refunds more - I'm guessing he's fine with half-month refunds and 2 month later refunds!!



      Here's a tip: Charge less - or charge appropriately. I wouldn't return a defect lollypop I bought from the convenience store, but I WOULD refund a defect tablet PC I bought from an electronics vendor. See what I'm getting at?
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    • Profile picture of the author semmyw
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


      Let me spell it out: you can't have refunds unless people are buying your products.

      It's up to you which one you think is more important. And if you really can't stand the refunds, just stop selling anything, and they'll go away.

      LOL I really like your words CDarklock. I agree with you, just stop selling anything then the refund will be stop.
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    • Profile picture of the author jacksonlin
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


      Let me spell it out: you can't have refunds unless people are buying your products.

      It's up to you which one you think is more important. And if you really can't stand the refunds, just stop selling anything, and they'll go away.

      I agree.

      I get refunds of people who buy my products, it's very annoying, but then again, **** happens.

      You just got to live with it.

      Make your product seem better in terms of perceived value. Make it a "members site" then reinforce the notion of "being an action taker" and let the reader know it's their responsibility for their own success.

      That should help.
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  • Profile picture of the author joseph7384
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Armstrong
      If you don't like people requesting refunds maybe you should consider not offering a no questions asked refund policy?

      If you don't want to do that then at least think about it from a different perspective....

      Serial refunders never would have purchased your product anyway so have you really LOST anything?
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    • Profile picture of the author Targeted Traffic
      Originally Posted by joseph7384 View Post

      Well that's a part of doing business, I wouldn't let it drive you crazy because there will always be someone that's looking for that free ride.

      Joseph
      True... when you are selling something...expect for these things to happen...just the way it is. Cool it
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  • Profile picture of the author Gama Seva
    If you are selling online then refund is unavoidable, so you've gotta get used to it. It is annoying I know but that's the reality. Asking for refund is better than buying your stuff and then file a dispute immediately without even contacting you.

    Gama
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    Yep it's annoying I do agree but it's just part of selling stuff, wouldn't you say?

    Even "real" business in the offline world deal with this on a daily basis. I used to work at Walmart (sad but true) and you'd see people returning stuff every day and sometimes they'd obviously just used it for a party or something; such as the lady returning a bunch of chairs she bought right before the super bowl and then returning them all a few days later.

    And they often didn't have good reasons, just that they didn't want it anymore.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peng
    I did real business, sometimes customers as return goods or refund will answer without any delay.. i bough some software ask refund...no answer.. as the software not working at china.. coz need open a facebook..
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    • Profile picture of the author joseph7384
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author Peng
        Originally Posted by joseph7384 View Post

        You my want to rephrase that to I had a offline business instead of real business because to most of us here, this is a real business.

        Joseph

        Thanks Josep..for your correction
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      • Profile picture of the author Robert Michael
        Originally Posted by joseph7384 View Post

        You my want to rephrase that to I had a offline business instead of real business because to most of us here, this is a real business.

        Joseph
        hell yea. it pays my rent and my bills, and i invest my own time into it. i'd say it qualifies as real.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeeksSteven
    Originally Posted by HotDamnShortSales View Post

    I know there are people here who will say "well your product sucks, that's why", well it does NOT suck. its a true wealth of knowledge, 152 pages on how to do short sales.
    Refunds with no real valid cause really do suck, but its a part of any business. It could be worse. At least you're selling a product that is completed and doesn't require any more ongoing work. Imagine providing a service that you had to actually work on for hours and then you get one of those obvious "free ride" refunds...Those are just great!!:rolleyes:
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    • Profile picture of the author webpageguru
      I understand your frustration. I believe that most buyers are genuine and that most refund requests have a REAL reason behind them. That said, there will always be some that take advantage.

      However here is one reason why there MUST be a refund avenue for dissatisfied customers. I think you will agree that most WSO's are shrouded in mystery. For a very good reason. You dont want to spill the beans in the advert as then nobody will buy.

      By deliberately disguising or hiding the "secrets" your buyers have to buy to find out what they do not know. However, what if, after buying your "secrets" the buyer feels that he/she already knows them. There is thus no value-add. In a case like this a refund is most deserved.

      If your refund rate exceeds,say, 8% of your sales, then there could well be something wrong with the information you are dispensing. Under 8% - live with it!

      Martin
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      • Profile picture of the author kellyburdes
        I strongly disagree with this, and all of the available evidence supports this.

        I used to do everything I could to keep refunds to a minimum. I thought it made me a bad person, a bad vendor and business person if I was getting refunds.

        I've always over delivered in my products, but I did not push in the copy because I found that when I did I had higher refunds.

        Then I was at an event where John Carlton said, very seriously, that if your refunds are not at least 20%, your f'ing up your conversions and leaving a ton of money on the table.

        I didn't want to believe him, but I got more aggressive with my copy just to see what would happen. Predictably both sales and refunds went up, but refunds went up at a rate much less vs my sales.

        I've found that my sweet spot is around 15/20%. If my refunds are not at least 15%, I'm not pushing hard enough in my launch and in my copy, and I'm leaving profits (usually around 30%) on the table.

        That's after costs, including refunds, are taken into account.

        Refunds suck, and serial refunders (especially those who buy/download and refund right away) are nothing but thieves. However, you have to live with them and accept them as part of your business.

        Get more comfortable with being a lot more aggressive in your selling tactics and see what happens to your bottom line. I think you'll be very happy, and as long as you are putting out products that honestly help people live a better life - you have nothing to apologize for.

        Following the formula of finding a point of pain and opening it up and pouring salt in it, creating common enemies, and then positioning yourself as the solution to the problem (provided you really are) is a formula that some people are not very comfortable following, but you can't argue with the results.

        Dan Kennedy does a great job of describing it in his book Ultimate Sales Letters btw, and if you read a lot of the copy he writes, he's a master of that Formula.





        Originally Posted by webpageguru View Post


        If your refund rate exceeds,say, 8% of your sales, then there could well be something wrong with the information you are dispensing. Under 8% - live with it!

        Martin
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        • Profile picture of the author David Keith
          you are selling a product that is 90% + profit. very few other industries enjoy this kind of margin (maybe ladies of the night). so a few refunds is not really that big of a deal.

          if you have a quality product, you will not get a huge number of refunders.
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          • Profile picture of the author mings
            Originally Posted by owslaw123 View Post

            you are selling a product that is 90% + profit. very few other industries enjoy this kind of margin (maybe ladies of the night). so a few refunds is not really that big of a deal.

            if you have a quality product, you will not get a huge number of refunders.
            It's true, I recently explored and plan on opening my first ecommerce site.
            A refund has so much things to do, its not a simple point and click in paypal.
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        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
          Originally Posted by kellyburdes View Post

          Then I was at an event where John Carlton said, very seriously, that if your refunds are not at least 20%, your f'ing up your conversions and leaving a ton of money on the table.
          If John Carlton's refund rate were anywhere close to that, I might actually believe you. Except it's not, and he makes a selling point of it. You have either misunderstood something, or that was not John Carlton.
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          • Profile picture of the author thetrafficguy
            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

            If John Carlton's refund rate were anywhere close to that, I might actually believe you. Except it's not, and he makes a selling point of it. You have either misunderstood something, or that was not John Carlton.
            The difference is at this point Carlton is mostly selling to people he's done business with before and he has mucho social proof AND a relationship with. Not to mention he over delivers.

            When you're selling your front-end product to people (usually priced low) it will have way higher refunds. So someone starting off/selling their front end stuff will have a higher refund if they're pushing hard and/or driving lots of traffic.
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            • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
              Originally Posted by thetrafficguy View Post

              When you're selling your front-end product to people (usually priced low) it will have way higher refunds.
              Do YOU recommend a 20% refund rate as a baseline under which you are clearly not selling hard enough?

              Seriously, will YOU put YOUR name behind the recommendation that one out of every five people SHOULD be asking for a refund, or the product is not being promoted well?
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              "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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              • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

                Ain't buying. Pissing off 1 in 5 customers makes no sense at all.
                I'm with you on that. I'm pretty sure John Carlton is, too.

                I've heard 5% is the lower bound, and I can see that. One out of twenty? Sure. That's sensible. But twenty percent? Hell no.
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                "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author kellyburdes
    Refunds are annoying, but try offering digital products online without them and see how many sales you get. Now that is REALLY annoying.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimRohades
    that is really frustrating..but as a piece of advice the next time you do business if you don't want to expect a lot of refunds then don't offer refunds because some would just try it out and then when they have used it already they demand for refund...
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  • Profile picture of the author AlphaWarrior
    Originally Posted by HotDamnShortSales View Post


    I know there are people here who will say "well your product sucks, that's why", well it does NOT suck. its a true wealth of knowledge, 152 pages on how to do short sales.
    Frankly, if I am spending my money, it is my decision as to whether or not a product is any good and/or worth the money. You may believe that your product is great, and it may be, but it is not your decision. It is the buyer's decision.

    If you are getting too many refund requests, then, perhaps, your product is not as good as you think it is.

    One of the major problems with selling ebooks online is that the buyer cannot inspect the ebook prior to purchase. I have purchased several ebooks based on the sales pitch and then found that the ebook was not what I thought it was going to be. I asked for a refund and I expected a refund.

    This is not directed at you, but I have been genuinely surprised by the number of warriors who think that people who buy products unseen and uninspected online should simply keep the unwanted product and accept the loss of their money.

    I believe that it is like one warrior said, be glad that you are making sales. If you don't want any refunds, stop selling.
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    • Profile picture of the author sethdrebitko
      I think a big part of refunds is copy to be honest. I have noticed constantly with wso's and other info products that the vague text may lead you to think the product is what it is not. I've honestly requested refunds on products in less than a half hour because the first thing I do is skim the prduct to get an idea of what exactly I am supposed to get from it.
      Make your copy give a better idea of what the person is signing up for and you'll probably generate more genuine sales.
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      • Profile picture of the author myob
        When someone asks for a refund, that is a great opportunity to get their feedback and ask what you can do to improve the product. Perhaps to you the book is a "true wealth of knowledge", but others may feel different in comparison to the competition. Consider that refunders may be more receptive to other products.
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  • Profile picture of the author thetrafficguy
    Depending on where you're selling it do the ol' Halbert trick and offer a performance guarantee...
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    I love getting refunds. It means I'm selling stuff and making money.

    Who cares about the idiots who buy your product just to refund it. If you offer a refund policy then you have to honor it. The way I see it, you have 3 choices and 3 choices only:

    1. Stop selling your products...
    OR
    2. Stop offering a refund policy...
    OR
    3. Stop complaining about the refunds and concentrate on selling more stuff.

    No prizes for guessing which one will make you the most money in the long run.

    Don't think about the ONE sale you lost by having the refund policy. Think about the other 9 sales you made because of that same refund policy.
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    • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      I love getting refunds.
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      • Profile picture of the author MelodyChristie
        refunds to me sound like a good problem to a certain extent.. I mean if one can only seek a refund if they made the purchase in the first place.



        if the percentage of refund is low then we have no choice but to deal with it.. it's all part of business. On the other hand if you don't offer a refund many may not purchase to begin with (unless of course, you have a proven track record or tonnes of testimonials to back it up).


        I realise some say you should tell refund seekers "they can't keep it if they cancel".. but, seriously, there is no way to monitor whether or not they keep it..


        something I've seen other Warriors do is to offer one of their other products instead of immediately giving out a cash refund, if you're dealing with an unethical bunch, they may very well end up stealing the next product too!


        another thing worth trying is email the refund seeker and find out what went wrong, why they want a refund etc.. however you can only do this if you do NOT say "no questions asked" if you do this you may get to the real problem and you may very well be able to help them work it out without giving a refund.. don't forge.., they may be genuine requests



        If you offer a 7 to 10 day guarantee, that gives the buyer enough time to test the product and see if it's all they thought it would be.. also it gives them a sense of urgency to actually try it out for real.. rather than just save it on their hard drive whilst waiting for the credit card statement to come.. at which point they may end up cancelling just for the heck of it!


        all said and done.. don't take it personally.. there are bad apples out there but that doesn't mean we refrain from eating apples right? and besides.. refunds are a good problem.. if you didn't have any sales, we wouldn't be having this discussion.. cheer up!
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  • Profile picture of the author Raydal
    If you find refunds painful then you really believe
    in the value that you are offering. So at least
    that's one positive way of looking at hating refunds.

    At the same time, it's one of the (unfortunate)
    costs of doing business (online).

    -Ray Edwards
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  • Profile picture of the author That Guy
    Originally Posted by HotDamnShortSales View Post

    I know there are people here who will say "well your product sucks, that's why", well it does NOT suck. its a true wealth of knowledge, 152 pages on how to do short sales.
    Thanks for the clear unbiased review of your own product. How do yo know that your product doesn't actually suck? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author philipf
    thats the way it is, if you offer refund, they're bound to refund it
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  • Profile picture of the author JamieSEO
    You always have more refunds for digital products than physical ones.

    If you have a refund rate of 20% then the issue is not the people asking for refunds...

    - Make sure your sales copy is clear and not misleading
    - Consider lowering your price so that it is less likely for someone to chase a refund
    - Use more than one way of making money from the product (eg selling an ebook that has your affiliate links in it)
    - Interact with some of your customers that requested refunds to ask what in particular they found unworthy about your product (not what they expected, nothing new, outdated info, poor quality, etc)
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  • Profile picture of the author sahi
    Once a customer asked for refund within hours of buying my product claiming that the method described in it was too basic, and he didn't want to try it as it was for newbies to try it out. So I refunded him without hesitation, and then after few days i got an email from that fellow telling me that he had been implementing my method, and it worked and now he needed my support in answering questions, when in fact i was providing that support to my paying customers. WTF.

    That really pissed me off because first he claimed that my method was too newbish, and got his money back but kept the product[as is often the case in digital products], then later tried it and saw it worked, and now needed my support too but still not paying for the product.

    So if you are offering money back guarantee then you should formulate it in such a way that your customer should be required to give you proof/show you somehow that he in fact tried the method, and it didn't work the way you had promised/described in your sales letter. In this way refund rate will go down significantly, and serial refunders will stay away from exploiting your hard work.

    Also it'll compel you to offer good working quality stuff to your buyers because you'll know that they'll try it out definitely and if it didn't work you'll need to refund their money.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alan Ashwood
      Originally Posted by sahi View Post

      Once a customer asked for refund within hours of buying my product claiming that the method described in it was too basic, and he didn't want to try it as it was for newbies to try it out. So I refunded him without hesitation, and then after few days i got an email from that fellow telling me that he had been implementing my method, and it worked and now he needed my support in answering questions, when in fact i was providing that support to my paying customers. WTF.
      I can't believe the cheek of some people, I'd be furious too.

      One rather stupid one I had recently was someone who bought a web host through one of my affiliate links, then tried to get me to refund him my $60.00 commission directly, even though he retained the web hosting service. :rolleyes:

      The trouble with these threads is that it could give people ideas to follow suit. It may not have occured to them to buy something, then refund immediately. It does now.

      Cheers
      Alan
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  • Profile picture of the author Suze Thomas
    I think if the refund you are offering requires all kind of 'proof' that you used product, and how you used it etc, you may as well not offer a refund at all. That highly restrictive a refund policy will be a turn off to buyers, imo.
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Carlton said 7-15% not 20%. If I'm not mistaken.
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  • Profile picture of the author focused
    Though a certain percentage of the refunders are just thieves,
    there are others that may genuinely have a beef with your product.
    Perhaps, they found it too basic, or just B.S., or an unworkable system,
    or not well written, or a host of other defects.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wisden Writers
    There are different kind of people in this world, Some who request for refund as they don't like your stuff and few who request for refund as they got your stuff now and they want their money as well.
    You can't help it if you have no condition refund policy.
    You can't Say that You Stuff is Very Good, it may be good for some but not for all.

    In Business of Digital Marketing, its annoying but you have to face it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeanne Lovely
    Refunds are a fact of life in this business - we all hate them. When they bcome the norm, we know that our product is the problem, not the buyer.

    I rarely ask for a refund, but when I do it is because the product just plain STUNK

    There are those that buy and refund, but why even think about it, they are few and far between
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  • Profile picture of the author Greg Edwards
    Unfortunately, there are many "Serial Refunders" who purchase products and immediately requests for a refund. Prevention of this pandemic is difficult, as an understatement.
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