Finnish IT Retailer Reveals Most Returned Products

jones_supa writes: The largest computer gear retailer in Finland, Verkkokauppa.com, has unveiled top 20 lists of most returned and most serviced equipment in 2015 (Google translation). To offer an alternative to Black Friday, the company is going with a theme called "Sustainable Christmas". They want to guide shoppers to make good choices, as product returns always create extra burden for the distribution chain. Is there anything that catches your eye in the lists, or something else that you would like to warn about?

Comments

I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

But I still don't understand what a joulukouku is.

Re: I am sorry

[binarylarry]

It's a bit like a verkkokauppa.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Google translator to convert the article from Finnish to Basque... much better now!

And Google's translator offers the original text on mouseover so we can easily assess the quality of the translation...

Seriously now, we should have a global toggle in every DE/WM to enable that feature.

Sometimes translations are simply wrong: "to withdraw" means "to remove" but also "to back up" (meaning "going back", not making a secure copy).

Our coffee machine instructs us to backup up the beverage after it's ready.

mc has a serious translation mess up when one uses F5 (copy) in my language. Even if it's fixed other problems remain; with taht global option, one could devise a way to contribute better translation back to developers/translators, much like Google does.

Re: I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a picture of both on page 33 of the recent ikea catalog.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Google translator to convert the article from Finnish to Basque... much better now!

And Google's translator offers the original text on mouseover so we can easily assess the quality of the translation...

Seriously now, we should have a global toggle in every DE/WM to enable that feature.

Sometimes translations are simply wrong: "to withdraw" means "to remove" but also "to back up" (meaning "going back", not making a secure copy).

Our coffee machine instructs us to backup up the beverage after it's ready.

mc has a serious translation mess up when one uses F5 (copy) in my language. Even if it's fixed other problems remain; with taht global option, one could devise a way to contribute better translation back to developers/translators, much like Google does.

Or, instead of doing all of that, you could accept that English is the language of the Internet. However, some people just like to do things the hard way...

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

> Or, instead of doing all of that, you could accept that English is the language of the Internet. However, some people just like to do things the hard way...

That could be an alternative, of course.

The problem is that English brings its own problems into the game.

If one knows English (like I humbly like to think of myself), it is more or less equivalent to use English or invest in having proper translation.

Just to make it clearer:

1. Some people (like my son) require that I avoid English for a plethora of reasons (he's far too young to understand it);
2. English has some incredibly hurting bias which make translations harder than desired (e.g., the proverb "Forewarned is forearmed" -- 100% stupid in my culture and I fear it would damage my brain... look for the "Whorf hypothesis");
3. English as a tool is actually somewhat cumbersome to use, for its lack of regularity -- when people mention German as a science language, it's not because German is perfect... it's just that English happens to be bad -- but being bad for science kind of makes English good for lyrics, for instance (IMHO).

Learning English is a good skill to have, but one shouldn't consider a definitive solution but rather a workaround until we get a truly working Lingua Franca on the Internet.

If we fail at that, be prepared to learn Mandarin as the Internet language of the future (but English will still be useful, right behind Spanish, I suppose).

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

But I still don't understand what a joulukouku is.

Literally: Christmashook

But "Joulukuu" is literally Christmas "moon". In finnish month names end with -kuu ie. moon, meaning month. Both having same ethymological origin, see explanation here.

Joulu is finnish possibly from Swedish "Jul" meaning same thing ie. Christmas, but there are multiple explanations where Jul originally came from, see this.

Re: I am sorry

[theskipper]

But closer to "juouluokuoukuo" according to this European to American translator.

Re:I am sorry

[rasmusbr]

"Forewarned is forearmed" sounds like a very un-english to my ears, because it doesn't have any superfluous articles like "the", "a" or "an".

The thing about English is that it has survived 1500 years of mangling by our nasty foreign tongues, mostly by bending itself to accommodate different ways of using the language. I doubt that Mandarin will be able to do that in this century.

Re:I am sorry

[the_B0fh]

For Mandarin, you will have to bend your tongue to it, being a tonal language and all that.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

> The thing about English is that it has survived 1500 years of mangling by our nasty foreign tongues, mostly by bending itself to accommodate different ways of using the language.

Survived the mangling, yes, but it became, well, mangled.

> For Mandarin, you will have to bend your tongue to it, being a tonal language and all that.

I was not speaking as if I desired Mandarin to become more common, that scenario was intended to cause fear (for non-Chinese, that is). Also, whoosh!

Re: I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

IKEA product names are in Swedish, not Finnish.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

> Or, instead of doing all of that, you could accept that English is the language of the Internet. However, some people just like to do things the hard way...

If you can explain how using English on the Internet will fix my local apps localization, that would be great!

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Literally it would be joulukoukku. Kouku is not a word.

Re:I am sorry

[ranton]

The thing about English is that it has survived 1500 years of mangling by our nasty foreign tongues, mostly by bending itself to accommodate different ways of using the language.

Survived the mangling, yes, but it became, well, mangled.

Any other constructed language that survives the process of actually being used by billions of people would become mangled as well. Perhaps a little less mangled, or perhaps a little more. I would put a little more faith in another 50 years of English evolving than I would in constructing a better language with the goal of 3 billion people using it in the same time frame. Only a little more faith though.

I find it likely we create universal translators within the next 30 years that makes translation between languages trivial. I'm not sure if this would lessen adoption of a lingua franca (whether English or another option) or increase its usage. Both seem plausible.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Joulu means Christmas (yule, more precisely), and kouko is cake. It's a fruitcake.

Re:I am sorry

[Will.Woodhull]

Since the beginning of the Internet, English has become the fastest growing human language on Earth, ever.

There are now many times more speakers of English as a second language-- ESL speakers-- as there are those native born to speaking English. Even more to the point, there are more business and technical exchanges between ESL speakers than there are similar exchanges where all parties are native English speakers. Like it or not, English became today's "Lingua Franca" about a decade ago. Please try to keep up :-)

English is better suited to this role than any other native language. It is itself a mongrel language where most core concepts have multiple synonyms drawn from different ancient roots. And the pathway to adding new concepts from foreign languages remains wide open. "Namaste", the use of "fail" in constructions such as "he fails it", "samizdat" distributions, and hundreds more words absorbed from foreign root languages have changed English so much that a Professor of English of a hundred years ago would have difficulty understanding its daily use on blogs and forums, and would have vast difficulty in making his comments intelligible to others without first studying the new English.

English rules, but not because it is inherently better for global communications than any other language. English rules because it is so fantastically flexible that you can totally mangle all its rules of syntax and bring in any number of foreign words and still deliver a semantically valid message. English rules because its "rules" carry no more weight than mere suggestions. So you can mangle it in all kinds of ways, and still deliver something meaningful.

Re:I am sorry

[MarkRose]

It sounds very English to me. Most of the words are Germanic in origin, except arm, whose Middle English etymology in this usage comes from Old French/Latin.

I would argue English's articles are not superfluous, since English has lost its noun declension beyond the genitive.

Re:I am sorry

[TheDarkMaster]

Sorry for ruining your bubble but English is like AC said, a sloppy language that is only spoken in most of the internet because it is the language of the country that dominates the world. Right now I'm having trouble expressing this idea to you in English, because my native language is so much more logical and structured, to a point that any conversion is difficult to do without losing most of the meaning.

Re:I am sorry

[Dashiva Dan]

Sorry for ruining your bubble but English is like AC said, a sloppy language that is only spoken in most of the internet because it is the language of the country that dominates the world. Right now I'm having trouble expressing this idea to you in English, because my native language is so much more logical and structured, to a point that any conversion is difficult to do without losing most of the meaning.

^ Nailed it.
(as in, I couldn't find any meaning in that).

Curious as to what your mother tongue is, and how many languages you speak, that it makes English so difficult, as it is (as mentioned above) a very forgiving language.
English reminds me of HTML - even half mangled, most web browsers can manage to deliver the message.

Re:I am sorry

[TheDarkMaster]

Well, a simpler example: Imagine me writing as someone using PNG format. For me using English is like being forced to convert to JPEG format, you lost information in the process. Or maybe you are simply being sarcastic in a very stupid and arrogant way as is common among north-americans, who knows.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

> English is better suited to this role than any other native language.

Any other other language? ANY? BS! English is not particularly better language for this. It's just that America became so dominant in the world after the WW2. Before that French was the language of choice in diplomacy and German, French and English were all used in international science. Way before that Latin was used for almost anything.

Re:I am sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Another allegory:

English is like having a knife and fork. You can eat very well with them all the things to which you're used.

And chopsticks look cumbersome and hard to master: why going through the trouble to learn to use them?

And yet rice is different, more sticky to make it possible to eat it with sticks. Many foods are already cut piecemeal so you can eat them without the hassle of having to cur them at the table. Chopsticks are better for some tasks -- e.g. frying things.

People usually think of English as easy to learn, but in reality it's not. For those who speak Latin-derived languages, even with Latin-derived words, it's not always easy to recognize the different forms or meaning they take, since English not only incorporate foreign words but also modifies them.

Sometimes a single word becomes two, like in isolation and insulation, discrete and discreet, among others.

Some words like preposterous, commute, valedictorian, facade, commodity make it hard to tell what they mean.

Some are misleading like ingenuity, actual, alumnus, terrific, resume etc.

It's a mess, to put it simply. I'm not here to say other languages are better... all of them have their own problems. But it's very naive to say English prevailed because it's better. It's just a consequence of the great economic power the USA has.

Re:I am sorry

[Stuarticus]

I am reminded of a comment a friend's mother about how it mystified her that not everyone could speak Norwegian as it was "hard-wired into the brain". It is no great surprise you are more expressive in your first tongue.

Re:I am sorry

[Dashiva Dan]

Well, a simpler example: Imagine me writing as someone using PNG format. For me using English is like being forced to convert to JPEG format, you lost information in the process. Or maybe you are simply being sarcastic in a very stupid and arrogant way as is common among north-americans, who knows.

Actually, I'm Australian, although I did live in America for a while.
American English/Aussie English both have their differences to the Queens english (And even though us Aussies generally could care less about the queen, all she is to us is a public holiday once a year, really) Us Aussies still know we don't speak "Proper" English, and we're OK with that.
It's strange to me however that I find Australians seem to have very little problem with accents and "dialects" - american, english, irish, south american, whatever, it's all "english" enough that we don't need subtitles or translations 99% of the time.
It was weird as hell in America, however, how often they subtitle other english speakers on TV.
In any case, I've also lived in Finland, where while almost everyone under the age of, well, about 40 now I guess, can converse in english, however it's usually a bit of a struggle, as Suomi (Finnish) is so very different from English (At the same time many many Finns have better english than I do).
Most Finns speak Finnish, Swedish and English, and many add Russian, German, and other languages.
I've found in general, people who speak multiple languages (who speak them well, so this doesn't include me) tend to have an advantage when communicating in any of those languages.

rambling aside....
English is like transferring a png into an open source image format that people can hack to do whatever they want, transparency, localised scaling, whatever you think of, just hack it in, borrow some png code, some SVG concepts, and plug them in. English is flexible. Most other languages are far more rigid, which makes them easier to learn completely, but will hit the limits of that language. English speakers hit limits, and they just borrow/co-opt something from a language that has it, and make it work. English is more of a sandpit, and yeah, dig around you'll find plenty of crap in it, but it works.
p.s. sarcasm is a great tool, but explicitly identifying it as such would take the fun out of it.

Extension cable Return - did not reach my toilet?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck do you achieve near 50% return rate on a USB extension cable ?

Seen a statistic that claimed, over 30% of clothes bought online are returned as well. "Color not as expected.." - Go calibrate your monitor, FFS. The rest of us be paying the costs for this (near incredible) waste.

Re: No Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[johannesg]

That cable is three times longer than the standard allows. I imagine it just doesn't work very well.

It's all a numbers game

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of those figures reveal a low sample rate, would be nice to see how many actual units were returned as well.

Re:It's all a numbers game

[aix tom]

Yeah. Percentages are pretty meaningless without a "total number"

I remember a while back that there were at least fire people *in panick* in my company because in one store the profit margin on one product group "went into the cellar". They *just* looked at the profit margin percentage that popped up in a list and went havoc. Havoc enough to escalate it to *me* (the software developer) to see if that "could be right".

I just had to look at the revenue / volume columns right next to the percentage to see what the problem was. It was a sale of "one item" for "~5€" in a product group that the shop normally doesn't carry that somehow wound up in the sales bin of that shop in some mysterious way.

Re:It's all a numbers game

[Mr D from 63]

Some of those figures reveal a low sample rate, would be nice to see how many actual units were returned as well.

Yeah, 20.00% tells me that most likely only 5 or 10 units were sold. Too small a sample size to tell us much of anything.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Anonymous Coward]

'Active' USB extensions (usually..) work OK tho? Got a 10m ext. running car diagnostics as I type, not a problem, nor with anything else have used it on irl. Dunno anything whatsoever about how 'active' extensions actually work mind, nor am I arguing about the original spec. - these particular extensions may well not have been active enough.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[luvirini]

I unfortunately bought a shorter version a while back and the connector at one end (that is basically 1 port hub) is badly designed and came apart after about 10 plugin/pull out cycles..

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[luvirini]

The good active USB extenders work well, they are basically one port passive hubs. The cheapo ones are just a problem waiting to happen.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Gaygirlie]

Personally, I don't put much weight on the return rates at all; a humongous amount of people don't really understand what they're buying, then when they receive the package they realize it's not what they actually intended and then return it -- none of that says anything about the product itself. Warranty repairs, on the other hand, tell a whole lot more about the products themselves.

I Process Retail Returns Daily

[mentil]

The list is no surprise. Their top returns can be classified into 3 categories:
1) Tablet cases/covers. Oftentimes they explicitly claim to fit the iPads, and also other 10.1/7" tablets, but end up too loose and the tablet slips out, and of course the straps aren't adjustable. Few people bring their tablet into the store to check, and it's likely a present and still in a box.

2) Devices which utilize radio waves. Interference by walls/furniture, and other devices, cause reception to vary widely. The overloaded 2.4GHz spectrum is making this gradually worse. For wireless audio, people have little tolerance for the signal cutting out. Remember 'antennagate'? A poor wifi antenna can make a tablet (or unlocked phone) hard to use.

3) Sticks of RAM. I was kinda surprised by this, although thinking back to how many unused sticks of RAM I own that my mobos just won't work with for various reasons, it shouldn't be too surprising. Some people likely get SODIMMs instead of DIMMs and vice versa, or the wrong speed, or the wrong DDR tech.

In brick and mortar, top electronics returns are phone chargers with the wrong plug (Lightning instead of micro-usb or vice versa), and $5 headphones whose wires snap after bending them twice. Tablets are next, followed by Wifi speakers. God, the tablets; the cheap ones are cheap enough to be unusable, but are expensive enough to warrant returning, so the return rate is ~75% on some of them. Printers were very frequently returned because the manufacturer tried to save 50cents by not including a USB-B cable; customers would complain it had no cable, and for some reason they don't have a dozen laying around their house like I do. Only including a black ink cartridge and no color (or vice versa) was another frequently given reason. If people weren't able to rip the packaging open and try it on, I imagine many smartphone cases would be returned; apparently noone knows what phone they have, and have to try to put the case on in order to figure out if it'll fit. At best, they know they have an iPhone, or 'a Samsung', but most often, it's e.g. 'a Verizon'. Most amusing return award: an HDMI cable returned for 'not working with a 3d signal' despite the packaging explicitly saying it did. Surprisingly, (small) TVs were almost never returned, I guess they really do encourage passivity.

Re:I Process Retail Returns Daily

[Solandri]

In brick and mortar, top electronics returns are phone chargers with the wrong plug (Lightning instead of micro-usb or vice versa)

So not only does Apple flaunt the EU directive to standardize on micro-USB for phone charges, it shifts the cost of their non-compliance onto retail stores (and thus the rest of us) which have to deal with the returns?

Re:I Process Retail Returns Daily

[Anonymous Coward]

3) Sticks of RAM. I was kinda surprised by this, although thinking back to how many unused sticks of RAM I own that my mobos just won't work with for various reasons, it shouldn't be too surprising. Some people likely get SODIMMs instead of DIMMs and vice versa, or the wrong speed, or the wrong DDR tech.

We buy consumer grade RAM (mostly Corsair, Kingston) where I work. A good 10% (at least) of every purchase is bad. It's usually more subtle than simply "not working"; no, it usually results in Windows blue screening. We have to memtest every single stick and narrow down to the bad ones, and it's a tremendous pain in the ass.

Re: I Process Retail Returns Daily

[Redmancometh]

Bought 320gb of patriot ram for work recently..80 sticks, none bad. Maybe they checked them since bulk..but they have good heat spreaders too. Great ram for a similar price

Re:I Process Retail Returns Daily

[perpenso]

Apple offers a lighting / usb adapter. Its readily available in the US too.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[GuB-42]

Color not as expected.

Ordered white/gold dress, received blue/back one...

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[jones_supa]

Here is the product in question: Fuj:tech 10 m aktiivinen USB-jatkokaapeli

So from a technical standpoint it seems to indeed be a passive 1-port USB hub. Such solution probably improves the signal quality, but I believe that a true active cable would have an external power supply as well.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[drinkypoo]

So from a technical standpoint it seems to indeed be a passive 1-port USB hub. Such solution probably improves the signal quality, but I believe that a true active cable would have an external power supply as well.

A 1-port hub uses little power itself, so if you're plugging into a USB2 port (or an even more powerful one... my Gigabyte motherboard has 6A USB2 ports) there's really no need for external power.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, I'm pretty sure they are trying to weed out the shit products.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[jones_supa]

Yes, but a long cable can introduce power losses. That's why it implements the hub as well: to accommodate for signal degradation.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[drinkypoo]

Yes, but a long cable can introduce power losses.

Yes, that's why you need the hub. They could put a boost converter in there to kick up the voltage if they're worried about that.

remote-controlled panzer...

[Golden_Rider]

Number 11 on the top list of returned refurbished products is a "remote-controlled rechargeable Panzer III". Well, I guess once you have flattened your neighbour's home, there is not much use left for having your own Panzer. Wonder how often that one has already been sold and returned again.

Re:remote-controlled panzer...

[Chris Mattern]

Well, the PzKpfw III wasn't all that great a tank. They probably traded them in for Vs. (Tigers were even deadlier, but they were slow and lacked cross-country ability).

Close the loop

[XB-70]

If I were a manufacturer with a 20% return rate on my products, I'd do the following:

1. Put an immediate message out that "We have our best people working feverishly on the issue."

2. Force my engineering and channel sales experts to conference call each and every customer until they learn enough about the issue to fix the reason the product was returned.

3. Perhaps the products are not defective (such as RAM) but that the purchase process does not identify the correct RAM needed. I'd have my software team write code to detect the correct RAM needed (for example).

4. I'd tie the design team's bonus structure directly to return rates.

5. Lastly, I'd also close the loop with distributors - any product where return rates started to climb would be pulled.

(When you are getting a 20% return rate, you're not making profit anyway.)

Re:Close the loop

[rvw]

If I were a manufacturer with a 20% return rate on my products, I'd do the following:

1. Put an immediate message out that "We have our best people working feverishly on the issue."

2. Force my engineering and channel sales experts to conference call each and every customer until they learn enough about the issue to fix the reason the product was returned.

3. Perhaps the products are not defective (such as RAM) but that the purchase process does not identify the correct RAM needed. I'd have my software team write code to detect the correct RAM needed (for example).

4. I'd tie the design team's bonus structure directly to return rates.

5. Lastly, I'd also close the loop with distributors - any product where return rates started to climb would be pulled.

(When you are getting a 20% return rate, you're not making profit anyway.)

You forget:

0. Check the sales numbers. If the product is sold only five times, there's nothing to worry yet about the return rate, but marketing should get their act together.

Re:Close the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

(When you are getting a 20% return rate, you're not making profit anyway.)

obviously they still are, otherwise they aren't still in business....

profits, despite amazon, newegg or other online retailer's... even brick-and-mortar retailers like discount and grocery stores.... their profit margins are much higher than they claim. $79 regular price tablet, for instance at walmart... thanksgiving priced at under $29 -- and STILL MADE MONEY (as required by state law here which prohibits 'loss leaders'.. a minimum of 3%-6% markup required)

Re:Close the loop

[lucm]

When you are getting a 20% return rate, you're not making profit anyway

How can you make that kind of blanket statement? It totally depends on the profit margin and the cost of restocking. If you get 98% profit on $200 items that cost $3 to restock, who cares about 20% return rate.

Re:Close the loop

[damnbunni]

Oh, that's easy to get around. BigStoreSupply sells the tablet to BigStore under cost, so BigStore can sell it at a technical markup. BigStoreSupply is legally a different company, in a different state. BigStore can say 'See, here's our receipts, we bought it for $22.50 and sold it for $29!' because BigStoreSupply is technically not the same corporation as BigStore.

State: "Well, how much did BigStoreSupply pay for it?" BigStore: "Oh, I have no idea. You'd have to ask them." BigStoreSupply: "We're not in your jurisdiction, we don't have to tell you what we paid for our products."

Although with Wal-Mart, it's more likely 'Hi. you're going to sell us a crapload of tablets REALLY CHEAP so we can put them on special, or we won't carry your junk any more.' ''kay.'

That doesn't mean Wally normally gets the product that cheap. The supplier wouldn't be able to afford it. But most suppliers will take a loss on a product for Wal-Mart for Black Friday just for continued goodwill. It's also generally not a huge amount of whatever-it-is.

Re:Close the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Which state is that?

Re:Close the loop

[jmac_the_man]

STILL MADE MONEY (as required by state law here which prohibits 'loss leaders'.. a minimum of 3%-6% markup required)

Maybe the solution to your problem is to move to a state that isn't so tyrannical.

Re:Close the loop

[Opportunist]

It all depends on how much you charge for shipping&handling. Some of the lesser reputable TV shops pretty much live by their "100% return" guarantee, which is quite sustainable with a 20+ bucks shipping&handling fee that you don't get refunded.

Re:Close the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Wisconsin is a State that prohibits loss-leaders. I don't know if there are any others.

I used to work for a regional retailer (like WalMart) that was in the process of opening their first store in Wisconsin, and this was a significant problem for them, as it required them to develop custom pricing for one (at first) store.

Re: Close the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read about tyranny my friend, and prohibiting loss leaders is not it.

Re: Close the loop

[Redmancometh]

Said company only operates in half this context. A RAM mfg isnt going to make that tool...the burden is on MS. It would piss off investors/be a waste

"burden" on the distribution chain

[Anonymous Coward]

...which is reflected in the prices people pay. The funny thing about socialists is that they have so long ago forgotten cause and effect, each time they discover some kind of causal relationship it's like Quest for Fire.

Stop helping people think, they don't need it, and you aren't.

Re:"burden" on the distribution chain

[ledow]

The profit on an iPhone 5s is estimated to be over 90%, I believe.

It makes that list as one of the most returned products, but only because of insane margins.

As such, the monetary value alone is not useful or even indicative in judging whether something is "cheap and throwaway" tech, or a poorly-made expensive product that contributes to all kinds of waste.

Amazon basically haven't made profit, but their impact on the distribution chain, environmental considerations because they exist etc. is phenomenal.

Re:"burden" on the distribution chain

[Anonymous Coward]

The "profit" from an iPhone is not 90%. The materials cost may only be 10% but the rest of the revenue has to pay for R&D, Marketing, etc. A significant amount of work goes into iOS and there is no revenue from that.
 
I'm not saying that Apple isn't raking it in (their cash reserves are enough to dispel that) but people basing their profit estimates off of an iFixit tear-down are completely ignoring the bulk of Apples operations.

Re:"burden" on the distribution chain

[aitikin]

The "profit" from an iPhone is not 90%. The materials cost may only be 10% but the rest of the revenue has to pay for R&D, Marketing, etc. A significant amount of work goes into iOS and there is no revenue from that. I'm not saying that Apple isn't raking it in (their cash reserves are enough to dispel that) but people basing their profit estimates off of an iFixit tear-down are completely ignoring the bulk of Apples operations.

Additionally, that profit is Apple only. I can safely say that, selling iPads and Apple computers as a retailer is not very profitable at all. After free shipping (which we have to offer to stay competitive) we lose money on many iPad sales (especially if we ship a reliable method like FedEx or UPS instead of USPS) unless they're buying the accessories and/or AppleCare. Computers, off of a $2000 Mac, after free shipping, we're lucky to make $75, gross profit, so they're a bit better.

Re:"burden" on the distribution chain

[sjames]

Not to mention the handwaving costs.

R&D isn't that expensive when the cost is spread over the huge number of sales. Unlike many other operations, Apple can pretty much count on even a clunker selling enough to pay back the R&D costs at $1 per unit.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[meadow]

Could one of you guys please recommend to me a solution for a long (10 ft) usb cable (mini to A male)? I need to tether a camera to a PC and the cable + extender cable solution I've tried now with several different cables is not working.

They shouldn't sell cheap tat then

[Anonymous Coward]

If their business model didn't rely on stocking cheap tat from China and then selling it to people who don't need it then perhaps they wouldn't see so much returned.

how does your inner circle feel now

[lucm]

Too bad you specifically asked one of those guys for a solution because *I* do have one.

Re:how does your inner circle feel now

[meadow]

LOL how cruel! :-(

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[lucm]

came after about 10 plugin/pull out cycles..

that's what she said

Re:No Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

item 16: "21.57% Apple iPhone 5s 32 GB Black (Unlocked, Factory corrected), ME435."

Maybe they want iPhone 6 instead.

Chinese quality control

[Anonymous Coward]

Ship it. If it's defective, replace it. That's cheaper (for the manufacturer) than testing to ensure the product works before shipping it.

Sooner or later people will realize the lower price isn't worth the time and hassle.

Re:Chinese quality control

[Opportunist]

Why bother with Q&A?

If it works, great.

If it doesn't work, the customer pretty much gave you a 4+ weeks interest-free loan.

Re:Chinese quality control

[Anonymous Coward]

>Sooner or later people will realize the lower price isn't worth the time and hassle.

I've been hoping this since 1999 or so when I first started noticing a lot of Chinese products flooding the U.S. markets. But, no. I don't think it's ever going to happen until the typical American is bust and totally cut off from any source of lending. The typical American who buys this Chinese crap only cares about having a lot of "stuff" and is too uneducated to evaluate the quality of a product.

It's just too depressing to consider. Black Fridays continue and fights still break out over things so cheap and worthless I wouldn't want them even if they were given to me. Is it any wonder we have the politicians that we have and have the candidates that we have?

The usual suspects

[AmiMoJo]

It's always the same brands too. The fall into two categories:

1. Crap brands who bought the name of a previously respected company, e.g. Polaroid. If people buy a "Logik" brand device they don't expect much, but if they buy Polaroid and it's terrible they will return it. Plus the Polaroid name usually costs more.

2. Expensive brands that don't live up to expectations. Apple refurbs are a good example. You might save 50 Euros but people still expect it to be perfect.

Re:The usual suspects

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Crap brands who bought the name of a previously respected company, ... Logitech:

I've been through three different Logitech headset.

Currently with the G930 wireless gamer headset. After several years it suffers drop outs at least a couple times an hour. I know approx five other people with these who have the exact same problem (some much worse than I to the point they've abandoned the headset as unusable and returned to a wired setup). Searching online it's a common issue. I'm pissed off at Logitech because of the "promise" of what their headsets should be but they always fall short and are glitchy in some way. Close but not quite. I'll never buy another Logitech headset again.

I still like their wired mice but those break on me after a year or two also. Maybe it's time to try Corsair or Razor? I don't care how good an MS peripheral is (allegedly) I try hard to steer clear and not give MS any money.

Logitech bought Ultimate Ears. A premium brand. They make some nice stuff but because Logitech is the parent I'm afraid to shop there ever again too. My Logitech K811 is a fantastic wireless keyboard. No complaints there.

I saw other comments about crowded wireless spectrum causing issues. Yes it's probably true. I do as much as I can on wired to avoid problems. When I was searching places like head-fi for good wireless headphones I saw messages complaining about dropouts from some premium brands that were much more expensive than Logitech so it probably isn't an issue that can be solved just by throwing more money at your desired gadget price range. For now all my new headphones come with wires.

2. Expensive brands that don't live up to expectations. Apple refurbs are a good example.

Anecdotally I've heard the same experience from people I know who bought Apple Refurb. For the same reason if an iDevice is failing and still under warranty I get really scared. I get it fixed and then ditch it ASAP.

Re:The usual suspects

[Dogtanian]

Crap brands who bought the name of a previously respected company, e.g. Polaroid

Interestingly, the "Polaroid" camera listed there (the Polaroid 300 / Polaroid PIC-300) is actually just a *Fujifilm* Instax Mini 7 camera. That's right- the only camera Polaroid now sell that uses anything like the traditional Polaroid film technology is actually one made by Fujifilm (who licensed the patents from Polaroid)!

The current owners of the Polaroid brand *do* appear to be treating the instant photography line with a little more respect than the previous owners (who cancelled the original Polaroid film cameras- the only non-licensed thing they did, as even "their" digital cameras had simply been licensed-out rebrands). But outside that, they're still continuing the habit of whoring out the Polaroid name to random third parties for rebranding cheap tat no-name electronics, such as LCD televisions. In fact, in the UK, they're actually letting the supermarket chain Asda use it (in effect) as an own-brand for audiovisual products.

So, yeah, the Polaroid name *is* being used for random tat, but in this case, the "Polaroid 300" is actually just a rebranded Fujifilm model that gets decent reviews. Though I'd probably just go for the Fujifilm one myself anyway.

Re:The usual suspects

[AmiMoJo]

They sell Polaroid batteries in Poundland, and they are shit. They don't last long and they leak. The name has been ruined.

Re: The usual suspects

[Redmancometh]

Dont buy wireless audio stuff or you'll be sad. My PX22s could be sturdier...but performance wise they are awesome

Re:The usual suspects

[Anonymous Coward]

They sell Polaroid batteries in Poundland, and they are shit. They don't last long and they leak. The name has been ruined.

They've been licensing the Polaroid name for all manner of tat for well over a decade now, I doubt some crappy batteries are going to ruin it if it isn't already ruined.

Don't recall ever having seen "Polaroid" batteries in Poundland, but I've seen "Sony" and "Kodak" ones. Not that I give much of a t**s about the name anyway, as unless the company is a battery manufacturer, they're probably just rebranded third-party products. The Kodak alkalines aren't even distributed by Kodak- the packet makes clear that they're distributed under license by "Strand Europe". Who cares? They're just cheap batteries, and I've never had a problem with leakage.

Were the leaking batteries you bought zinc chlorides? I never buy those as alkalines themselves are so cheap these days, and despite being far cheaper still, the low capacity makes zinc chlorides a false (and pointless) economy in most cases.

Re:The usual suspects

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care how good an MS peripheral is (allegedly) I try hard to steer clear and not give MS any money.

Keep on that path. MS' peripherals are being built in the same sweatshops as Logitech's

Oh holy god, no, hahahahah

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They forgot average Slashdotter's rate of returned date invitations:

108%*

* Percent exceeds 100 due to frequent double responses of "No. God no."

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Anonymous Coward]

..as no-one else is being nice - if you have a working cable?, logically, just need a working A-A extension - the10m previously mentioned is this:

http://www.delock.com/produkte/F_164_USB-2-0-Verlaengerung_82446/merkmale.html

no shill, works fine - dunno about non-European availabity tho..

In saying that, fairly sure I have a few different brand extensions, never had a problem with any till now, maybe just lucky - I think what may be your specific problem, you are trying to use 'non-Active', or dumb extender? You do get these, dunno why tho, they are usually a 50-50 shot at best. Check whatever you are buying is 'active', check to see if it works on something else 1st - if not, then Return It - as everyone else seems to..

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[drinkypoo]

Well, I can't because last time I needed to do this, I just used a cheap crap hub (cheapest-on-ebay style) I had lying around. I bought it to feed power to and be a hub for my Pi, and then it turned out to be too crap to do that job. It was fine to bring keyboard, mouse, and an optical drive out to my desk from my closet, though.

WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[blind biker]

Seems like WD Black hard drives have some quality issues.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[Anonymous Coward]

they're (somewhat oddly) in the 'recondition/service' (ie not 'returned') list tho..

Bangs drive sharply against table edge - "Heads are moving freely now, Sir - our apologies for your previous data loss.."

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[Opportunist]

What strikes me as far more interesting is that people bother with retailers when it comes to WD RMA. WD has maybe the most hassle-free RMA service in the industry, the last thing I'd want to go through with them is the usual "take it to the retailer, wait 4-6 weeks for replacement" spiel.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[Anonymous Coward]

You should realise that Finland is not the United States, and you just do not send products back to manufacturers here in socialist Finland. The retailers are the ones who handle returns and warranty claims and everything.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[jones_supa]

Can confirm the AC. In Finland it is typical to have warranty returns handled through the retailer.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[AK Marc]

If you bought a SATA when you wanted a PATA, how would warranty repair help you?

If you can return it to the retailer for a full refund the next day, and get another brand new one, why would you bother with a warranty return of any kind? 4-6 week replacement time at a retailer sounds quite illegal. It's a return of DOA and a new purchase, not a repair at the retail shop.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[sjames]

That used to be expected in the U.S. as well. Take it back to the store, show that it doesn't work and a receipt to show when you bought it. Leave with a new one.

Really, it makes sense. The store is the one that has a business relationship with the manufacturer. You bought the item from the store.

If the brick and mortar stores in the U.S. hadn't stopped doing that, they might stand a chance against online retailers.

Re:WD Black the 3rd most broken item

[tlhIngan]

What strikes me as far more interesting is that people bother with retailers when it comes to WD RMA. WD has maybe the most hassle-free RMA service in the industry, the last thing I'd want to go through with them is the usual "take it to the retailer, wait 4-6 weeks for replacement" spiel.

Not really. Seagate used to have the best - for $10 you not only get an advanced shipment drive, but you also get a label to return the old one - which I always used because $10 is less than half what return shipping is. And Seagate's RMA tracking worked.

With WD, I tried advanced shipping once - and a month later, they still haven't updated their RMA system with the fact that the drive is there. I emailed them proof of shipment (I used FedEx and had tracking and everything), they manually marked it as returned as the drive did arrive and was signed for. Three months later, I get an email saying they got the drive. WTF? And maybe it was a one off, but no, I had another drive fail, returned it (regular RMA this time). Again, nothing - until I started calling them and gave them again all the shipping information. This time a couple of weeks later they shipped the drive, and a month later, they "found" the drive I sent in.

I wish both would just offer an RMA system that works and allow you to buy a label from them - Seagate for me worked the best for RMA because they always got it shortly after it arrives and for $10, I didn't really care about that since the return shipping would cost me $25 normally, so I'd save $15, and the drive would be processed quickly. Alas, I'm told those days are gone.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Anonymous Coward]

> Go calibrate your monitor, FFS.

I did that once.

I adjusted my monitor because I found Windows default calibration too saturated and got photos to appear as the author intended (gamma, brightness etc.).

Then I made a presentation and loaded into my boss computer. Everyone thought I was crazy about too much color, because their screen was uncalibrated.

Lesson learned: you cannot make Windows work, because for every other user it is broken.

If you want good image quality everywhere, get a Mac.

Mac users are stupid, too, and they insanely believe Apple does everything right. Fortunately, regarding image quality, fonts and some other things, it really is excellent.

Of course, there's the open gold jail problem (I would use a gold collar with chain image, but that might be a tad exaggerated).

This entire article "seems" a lot...

[denzacar]

It seems legit, it seems like there are huge returns, it seems relevant...
But without actual sales numbers we don't know if an item with a 50% return rate is one out of two sold, or five out of ten or fifty out of a hundred...

As for WD Black drives...
They are slightly pricier - and they come with a 5-year warranty. Most other WD drives come with a 2- or 3-year warranty.
Which gives those WD Black drives more time to start "acting suspiciously".

So the customer is incentivised to send it back and most likely get a new one if in ANY doubt - as it is marketed as a "special guaranty" high end product.
If it is broken you get a new one - if it is not, you just got a free check-up by manufacturer.
It's a win-win to take it back to the store.

It's a case of a quality product's good warranty working as it should - keeping the customer satisfied and returning instead of going somewhere else.

Return statistics from a french webshop

[guerby]

Available every 6 monthes : http://www.hardware.fr/article...

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[jedidiah]

No. The problem is that you screwed with the defaults. If you did that on a Mac you would have the same problem for the same reason.

Re: No Surprise

[Redmancometh]

Kids arent so big on perspective

Re: Extension cable Return - did not reach my toil

[Redmancometh]

At my old retail job A/A extenders usually got returned because they thought it was a regular usb cable

Re:No Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you know a lot about disappointment.

Re:I am sorry, truly sorry

[Will.Woodhull]

It sounds like your ability to express yourself in your native language is much better than your ability to express yourself in English. That seems reasonable. Perhaps as you learn how to express yourself well in English your prejudice against the English language will decrease. And make no mistake: you are clearly prejudiced in this matter since you are judging English's semantic carrying capacity before you even know how to use its flexible syntax to deliver your meanings in a satisfactory way.

Hint: English is less structured and logical than many other languages but instead provides the tools to construct new expressions on the fly, as the need is encountered. This makes it ideal for today's Internet as new concepts from foreign cultures or research can be easily assimilated into the mainstream language. I don't see this advantage disappearing any time soon.

USB "charger" cables

[Anonymous Coward]

You can pretty much forget about buying USB "charger" cables off of Amazon, eBay, or any other online site. Just about every one I've bought that's advertised to charge ASUS Transformers or some variant of an iDevice has been so far out of spec that they can only be used for data transfer and not for charging. In the end the only way to be sure is to front up to a brick and mortar store with your device and prove that it can be used for charging before paying for it and leaving the store.

Re:I am sorry, truly sorry

[TheDarkMaster]

My problem with English is that it is too "crude". As I said to another commentator, a way of explaining the problem is you imagine that I speak using the PNG format (lossless) and to speak in English I have to go to speak in JPEG format (lossy), you lose information and meaning in the process.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Not-a-Neg]

The cable is fine, it's the software and/or hardware not being capable of coping with the added latency. I use an active USB repeater cable of the same length without issue for a keyboard and mouse. However, I've seen products that cannot cope with the latency such as digital whiteboards and flatbed scanners.

Re:Extension cable Return - did not reach my toile

[Stuarticus]

I've bought three of the past two years to run my htpc in the loft. They are really unreliable, I'm not even sure I'm going to replace the one that broke in the last power outage we had. The repeaters seem to be the problem, it still passes power.