No Refund in Naas

by retail therapist Wed Nov 16, 2005 02:22

If its not a legal requirement what can explain the rise in the amount of shops which offer easy refunds and exchanges?
Here's the bit i bet you didn't know, okay you probably did i just wanted to feel brainy..

Many clothing chains have made refunding and exchanging clothing easier as part of the whole marketing communications effort to ease peoples dissatisfaction with their retail experience as therapy. Everyone likes going out and buying tat to feel good about themselves, often when we get home we decide that what we bought was indeed tat, and a waste of too much money, we then feel a deep sense of guilt, if this guilt remained we would learn our lesson and buy less tat. If we tried to return it and were refused that guilt creates unpleasant feelings about the retailer who will not ease our imagined suffering.

However if it is made easy for us to return the item we are more likely to return and buy more tat, thus we bypass the need to learn the lesson. there is no longer any guilt involved. This also works on a second level where we put the item back in the bag and place it in the bottom of the wardrobe with the intention of returning it, although this will never happen, this illogical act is enough in most cases to negate the guilt. Fortunately for shops the amount of people who delude themselves and the consumer satisfaction caused by the removal of guilt leads to higher spending. Also on a high percentage of occasions refunded monies are then used to purchase something cheaper immediately afterwards in the same shop. It's win, win.

In this way marketing communications has removed much of the guilt from hedonistic and reward shopping thus making shopping as a pleasurable and therapeautic experience slide much more easily into our psyche

That explains why all those places offer refunds and exchanges, its not because they care about your legal rights its all about creating a more pleasurable and alluring consumer enviroment so that you'll spend more in the long run.

I can tell you from personal experience that wandering into the wrong sections of libraries can be very informative, much more informative than reading the work of those who oppose something. Get it from the horses mouth, its amazing what people blithely admit to in publications aimed at educating their industry, childrens advertising and marketing is especially eye opening

So from this you can guess that this book shop was too cheap to even learn the basics of marketing communications. I get the feeling that you are dissatisfied and might not shop there again unless neccessary, unfortunately all this means is that marketing communications work, those who gain your confidence in order to increase the amount of your money they take in the end are the ones we view in a favourable light.

On the other hand that shop owner is just an unthinking git, a little bit of kindness and manners would do him the world of good

by Niall Wed Nov 16, 2005 01:05

... if something is 'faulty'.

If you buy something and it doesn't function in the way you would expect it to, or if it doesn't do the job that it claims to do etc.

If you had bought a book with missing pages, or pages stuck together or blank pages or something like that you'd have been entitled to a full cash refund. Unfortunately in this case, you're not.. You should expect some manners though or even good business sense and I would think that to have offered you a credit note or an exchange would be good business practise, at least you could have walked away with another book of your choice, shop still has your cash, everybody happy. Most shops will have the sense to do that and it's good manners. But now you won't go to that shop again.

If you buy a knife that's blunt, or a lighter that doesn't light, or a cd that skips, or a rainjacket that lets in water or the like, you are entitled by law to ask for and expect to get your money back. Credit notes or vouchers are bullshit attempts by retailers to keep your cash. You should always insist on the cash.

Basically the rule is, the goods that you buy should be expected to live up to what you expect those goods to do. If not, and even if the goods are used, like a pair of leaky wellies which you only found out were leaking after spending a day in the woods, you're still entitled to your cash refund.

by Margaret Tue Nov 15, 2005 21:53

Just had a quick look at these websites
Government OASIS site:
http://www.oasis.gov.ie/consumer_affairs/?CONTACTSID=42a26b5f509dd09347be896791093696

and the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs:
http://www.odca.ie/

Many clothes shops I know of do allow you to exchange goods or issue credit notes even though they aren't required to do so by law. Even in cases where the customer is entitled to a refund (faulty goods) it seems that the legislation doesn't say it has to be cash i.e. it can be a credit note or voucher.

by eddie hobbesian Tue Nov 15, 2005 20:57

You made the error, the good was neither faulty or whatever. So it was up to you to make the correct purchase. The owners of the shop is a scabby so and so all the same.