Have you ever tried a product you just couldn't wait to use, only to be let down harder than an elephant falling off a tight rope? A year later you're still seeing it in stores, wondering how the hell it's still being sold. Here's the question: did you return it? If not, you could be part of the reason it's still out there waiting to crash another person's hopes.
Look, I've worked several retail jobs and know that returns can absolutely kill your store's day. It can screw with store metrics, make your metrics go down, yada yada yada. But why is the customer always the one who gets blamed? Why do customers get treated like lepers and con artists just because they want to get their money back on a useless, ineffective, or defective product?
It's because stores are more concerned with the short-game goals. It's not their fault, though; that's how major chains and corporations are wired to run. It's not a perfect system, but it's the simplest to implement. No hate, no shame. However, more stores need to be thinking of the long-term, and returns play a major part in long-term goals and sustainability.
Example: When holiday sets started coming around, I got a set from Smashbox I thought I would absolutely love! It had a lipliner, blush+lip chubby stick, lipstick, and gloss, all in a pretty pastel pink shade called 'Pout'. I've used the 'Pout' glass before and the color was very flattering so I figured it would be a home run.
I was wrong.
The color was completely different. It was a chalky, nearly white gloss which pulled directly into liplines and was stickier than the floor of a porno studio. Aside from that, the lipstick was obviously out of date and the chubby stick was awful on both cheeks and lips. The saving grace was the lipliner, but at $40 I was basically paying double for one usable product. It went back to the store within a week.
Less than a month later, the set was put on clearance. Why? Not because it didn't sell. It was because it DID sell, then the returns came in like wildfire. An associate I spoke to said they were informed that the stores were super pissed at all the returns they were getting just from this one product.
And that's one of the main point of returning things: when you return a bad product you're hitting the stores and brands where they hurt: their wallets. You're actively helping stores and brands to weed out the shitty stuff that somehow made it through testing and ended up being sold to the masses. When certain products see abnormal returns, brands and stores take notice.
Leaving a negative review on a website is one thing, but actions speak louder than words. When you get stuck with a shitty product, don't simply roll over and say 'okay'. Make your voice heard! Return that piece of shit and make a statement; and equally importantly, get your hard-earned cash back. It doesn't matter if the product costs $2 or $200. No one should make you feel like you don't deserve your money back for getting duped into buying a piece of crap.
Returns may be hated by stores in the short-run, but they're helpful to everyone overall. Don't hesitate to return a bad product because, in actuality, you're helping the system.
And if anyone tells you otherwise I'll kicka dem straight in de crotch.
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