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Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

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41–50 of 328 posts

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#41
post #10
post #6

Why is this the case? Is there some societal expectation? I know that eg: american grocery stores are much more accepting of returns for any reason vs european ones in general.

There is societal expectation. Frankly no one wants opened/used products, so you know those will be sold at significant discount, or refurbished, or thrown away. No business accepts that unless they HAVE to.

"Frankly no one wants opened/used products"

Um ... When I buy for myself I look for open box products all the time. Steep discounts (sometimes 25% or more) are awesome for something that is essentially new. I don't give a shit about the unboxing experience unless it's a gift for someone else.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#42
post #10
post #6

Why is this the case? Is there some societal expectation? I know that eg: american grocery stores are much more accepting of returns for any reason vs european ones in general.

There is societal expectation. Frankly no one wants opened/used products, so you know those will be sold at significant discount, or refurbished, or thrown away. No business accepts that unless they HAVE to.

No one wants used products for "new" prices, but plenty of people would be willing to buy open-box items at discounted prices. It's a huge thing for appliances.

In most situations, however, things are simply repackaged and sold as new. Clothing, for example, is commonly returned; then hopefully re-washed before selling again as new. In most situations this applies to electronics as well, although electronics can be different. There are stories out there of people buying new SD cards that had photos on them. Most companies have a return center that processes returns, inspects them, resets them, and repackages them to be sold again as new.

Exceptions are when returns are sent to stores… like Amazon or Best Buy handle returns differently than returns going back to the manufacturer.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#43

So I bought a Macbook Air with M1 that I used for 3 months and noticed the right speaker cracking issue (apparently this is widespread on forums) and instead of going through the headache of repair service I ended up just tossing it online and buy a new one for <7500Rs in losses which I thought was a good deal. The new one has the same problem (yes I tried everything from restore to different audio but its not subtle…

Did you buy it via official reseller? Any reasonable country should have laws in place that will force the company to refund you for the defective goods. In that case Apple' policies shouldn't matter

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#44
post #31

Apple had a lot of trouble with the Indian market back the early 2010s. They had to pull AppleCare+ out of the country because people were abusing it a lot. [†] Same goes for the country's biggest online retailers, both Amazon and Flipkart also switched to a replacement-only policy in India. "Most analysts agree that many many buyers were abusing the company's refund policy. With many buying latest smartphones, and r…

Why would people want to have an iPhone for only a week? That sounds like more of a hassle than it is worth. Just to see what they are like?

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#45

So I bought a Macbook Air with M1 that I used for 3 months and noticed the right speaker cracking issue (apparently this is widespread on forums) and instead of going through the headache of repair service I ended up just tossing it online and buy a new one for <7500Rs in losses which I thought was a good deal. The new one has the same problem (yes I tried everything from restore to different audio but its not subtle…

Aluminium metallurgy strikes back.

That's why I am very hesitant to use it for mass manufactured goods.

ME misses 1 defect showing few months later, and you get n hundred thousand units recall, or worse, the client asking the money back. For a CM it's a complete devastation.

Machining is also very uneconomical unless you can contract high volume machining specialist, but that's impossible for most Only the biggest PC makers like Asus, and Acer can afford custom casting, and press forging at economical scales, but even they don't go for aluminium everywhere. ASUS for example went with stamped steel shells for some economy models.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#46
post #12

A friend who was on holiday in Turkey was refused a new iphone battery (she was willing to pay for it) at the official Apple store as it was not locally bought (she bought it in SF). So no global warranty, but also no global repair or replacement of parts with official parts even when you are willing to pay for it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about a story like this. One blew up a few years back on Reddit maybe? I’ll have to dig it up.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#47
post #6

Why is this the case? Is there some societal expectation? I know that eg: american grocery stores are much more accepting of returns for any reason vs european ones in general.

I think good return policies is good for business IF the business is operating in a society that generally behaves ethically on that matter. If the majority of returns are good faith, just swallow them and keep everything moving smoothly with happy customers. If you have a critical mass of customers who disregard right vs. wrong and just see a mark to be exploited, you're pretty much forced to behave adversarially, a…

Part of that is whether you live in a high trust or low trust society.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#48
post #44
post #31

Apple had a lot of trouble with the Indian market back the early 2010s. They had to pull AppleCare+ out of the country because people were abusing it a lot. [†] Same goes for the country's biggest online retailers, both Amazon and Flipkart also switched to a replacement-only policy in India. "Most analysts agree that many many buyers were abusing the company's refund policy. With many buying latest smartphones, and r…

Why would people want to have an iPhone for only a week? That sounds like more of a hassle than it is worth. Just to see what they are like?

Unless you are trying new iPhone every week ;)

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#49
post #44
post #31

Apple had a lot of trouble with the Indian market back the early 2010s. They had to pull AppleCare+ out of the country because people were abusing it a lot. [†] Same goes for the country's biggest online retailers, both Amazon and Flipkart also switched to a replacement-only policy in India. "Most analysts agree that many many buyers were abusing the company's refund policy. With many buying latest smartphones, and r…

Why would people want to have an iPhone for only a week? That sounds like more of a hassle than it is worth. Just to see what they are like?

Same reason people do the same thing with clothes.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple offer more than the legal minimum in other countries? I'm curious, I don't know, but in my experience buying Apple products in several countries, they offer the legal minimum nicely, without resistance (which is already better than many corporations), but generally not more than that. If the legal after-sales minimum is nothing, then that's what I'd expect Apple to offer.

Do most retailers? I haven't researched it or anything but my guess is that most retailers just offer the legal minimum, unless they explicitly have a generous return policy as a differentiating factor (Costco?).

Costco walked back their return policy for many technology products.
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