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

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

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.

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).

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.