6 ms·

So what's the story behind the return abuse in India?

by juancb 5y ago

gambiting 5y ago
I suspect it's the same story I heard in Poland - it's basically impossible to buy insurance against loss of mobile phone, because apparently people abused it too much. You can still get insurance against theft or damage, but not for loss. It was just too easy for people to say "yeah, I lost the phone, please send a new one thanks". But I mean, those policies exist elsewhere, so I don't know what specifically makes Polish customers more prone to abusing those policies. I suspect it's the relative cost of a phone vs income.
- alex_smart 5y ago
  I can't speak for Poland, but for India the primary reason such services can't exist is - culture. India is basically a "low trust society". People in general have a mindset of "scarcity" and at every stage of their lives they try to micro-optimize for what's the best for them at that time. In the absence of good institutions, this often means that we get stuck in shitty Nash equilibria which have terrible, terrible outcomes for everyone involved, but are difficult to get out of. It is not that everyone in India has no morals or behaves terribly. But the number of people who do are enough to spoil trust-based models that work in other countries by making them too expensive. From a business point of view, the obvious question is - how do you create a circle of "trustworthy" people? If you could create such a circle, you could offer them special services (better return policies, lower rates for insurance and credit etc) to encourage them to consume more without worrying so much about abuse. This is one of the most exciting business problems in India and solving it is worth at least worth 10 billion dollars and that is probably an underestimate. There is one company already that claims to have solving this problem as their primary long-term vision - Cred and that company is currently valued at > $2 billion even though currently their revenues are weak and any connection to the long term trust problem quite distant.
  - lovestodonothin 5y ago
    Which company is that?
    - alex_smart 5y ago
      It's called Cred.
axaxs 5y ago
I'm just an observer of forums and whatnot, and not Indian, but have a couple guesses. 1 - People buying a handful of phones and comparing them, then returning all but the one they decide to keep. 2 - Semi related, one of the ten thousand phone comparison Youtuber channels.
- wolfretcrap 5y ago
  No average Indian asking for return doesn't have YouTube review channel.
- r-bar 5y ago
  I think #1 is a signal of a failure in the online retail space. As a customer other than reading the (often gamed) reviews on amazon and watching youtube reviewers how do you know what to buy? Buying a bunch of options and returning them starts to look like a legitimate strategy. For some products (for me it tends to be laptops) you really do not know if you like it until you have your hands on the physical product.
  - axaxs 5y ago
    I agree. I myself have noticed how bad all reviews have gotten. For example, I bought an S20 FE last year, and it had a horrible touch screen. Almost EVERYONE who bought one said the same thing and complained. I can think of zero 'reviewers' who even mentioned it. I would be supremely angry if it were a $1200 device with no return policy. I don't really know what the solution is. I think a phone rental business could spring up. Charge $10/day or something to rent a high end phone to folks to see how they like it.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
      Back in the day, this is what electronics shops were used for... go to Circuit City/Best Buy/Your Telephone Company's store and check out the phones.
      - happymellon 5y ago
sss111 5y ago
AppleCare+ covered two incidents of Theft, Loss and accidents. Third party resellers essentially activated an iphone and marked it as lost. Then, after getting a new replacement iPhone from Apple, they would go on and sell it to customers. Nowadays, you can only get AppleCare (not the plus) in India which does not cover theft or accidental damage.
- robbiep 5y ago
  Does that really lead to gain? I would have thought logging the phone as lost with Apple would have disabled it. Presumably not

So what's the story behind the return abuse in India?

by juancb 5y ago

So what's the story behind the return abuse in India?

I suspect it's the same story I heard in Poland - it's basically impossible to buy insurance against loss of mobile phone, because apparently people abused it too much. You can still get insurance against theft or damage, but not for loss. It was just too easy for people to say "yeah, I lost the phone, please send a new one thanks". But I mean, those policies exist elsewhere, so I don't know what specifically makes Polish customers more prone to abusing those policies. I suspect it's the relative cost of a phone vs income.

alex_smart 5y ago
I can't speak for Poland, but for India the primary reason such services can't exist is - culture. India is basically a "low trust society". People in general have a mindset of "scarcity" and at every stage of their lives they try to micro-optimize for what's the best for them at that time. In the absence of good institutions, this often means that we get stuck in shitty Nash equilibria which have terrible, terrible outcomes for everyone involved, but are difficult to get out of. It is not that everyone in India has no morals or behaves terribly. But the number of people who do are enough to spoil trust-based models that work in other countries by making them too expensive. From a business point of view, the obvious question is - how do you create a circle of "trustworthy" people? If you could create such a circle, you could offer them special services (better return policies, lower rates for insurance and credit etc) to encourage them to consume more without worrying so much about abuse. This is one of the most exciting business problems in India and solving it is worth at least worth 10 billion dollars and that is probably an underestimate. There is one company already that claims to have solving this problem as their primary long-term vision - Cred and that company is currently valued at > $2 billion even though currently their revenues are weak and any connection to the long term trust problem quite distant.
- lovestodonothin 5y ago
  Which company is that?
  - alex_smart 5y ago
    It's called Cred.

axaxs 5y ago

I'm just an observer of forums and whatnot, and not Indian, but have a couple guesses. 1 - People buying a handful of phones and comparing them, then returning all but the one they decide to keep. 2 - Semi related, one of the ten thousand phone comparison Youtuber channels.

wolfretcrap 5y ago
No average Indian asking for return doesn't have YouTube review channel.
r-bar 5y ago
I think #1 is a signal of a failure in the online retail space. As a customer other than reading the (often gamed) reviews on amazon and watching youtube reviewers how do you know what to buy? Buying a bunch of options and returning them starts to look like a legitimate strategy. For some products (for me it tends to be laptops) you really do not know if you like it until you have your hands on the physical product.
- axaxs 5y ago
  I agree. I myself have noticed how bad all reviews have gotten. For example, I bought an S20 FE last year, and it had a horrible touch screen. Almost EVERYONE who bought one said the same thing and complained. I can think of zero 'reviewers' who even mentioned it. I would be supremely angry if it were a $1200 device with no return policy. I don't really know what the solution is. I think a phone rental business could spring up. Charge $10/day or something to rent a high end phone to folks to see how they like it.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
    Back in the day, this is what electronics shops were used for... go to Circuit City/Best Buy/Your Telephone Company's store and check out the phones.
    - happymellon 5y ago

sss111 5y ago

AppleCare+ covered two incidents of Theft, Loss and accidents. Third party resellers essentially activated an iphone and marked it as lost. Then, after getting a new replacement iPhone from Apple, they would go on and sell it to customers. Nowadays, you can only get AppleCare (not the plus) in India which does not cover theft or accidental damage.

robbiep 5y ago
Does that really lead to gain? I would have thought logging the phone as lost with Apple would have disabled it. Presumably not