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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?
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.
That cable is three times longer than the standard allows. I imagine it just doesn't work very well.
Some of those figures reveal a low sample rate, would be nice to see how many actual units were returned as well.
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..
The good active USB extenders work well, they are basically one port passive hubs. The cheapo ones are just a problem waiting to happen.
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.
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.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Color not as expected.
Ordered white/gold dress, received blue/back one...
It's a bit like a verkkokauppa.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
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.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, but a long cable can introduce power losses. That's why it implements the hub as well: to accommodate for signal degradation.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.)
*** Don't be dull.***
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.
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.
Too bad you specifically asked one of those guys for a solution because *I* do have one.
lucm, indeed.
came after about 10 plugin/pull out cycles..
that's what she said
lucm, indeed.
item 16: "21.57% Apple iPhone 5s 32 GB Black (Unlocked, Factory corrected), ME435."
Maybe they want iPhone 6 instead.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They forgot average Slashdotter's rate of returned date invitations:
108%*
* Percent exceeds 100 due to frequent double responses of "No. God no."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
..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..
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.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Seems like WD Black hard drives have some quality issues.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
> 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).
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.
But closer to "juouluokuoukuo" according to this European to American translator.
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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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.
For Mandarin, you will have to bend your tongue to it, being a tonal language and all that.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Available every 6 monthes : http://www.hardware.fr/article...
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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Kids arent so big on perspective
At my old retail job A/A extenders usually got returned because they thought it was a regular usb cable
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.
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.
Will
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.
Be relentless!
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.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
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.
Will
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.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
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.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
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.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
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.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
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.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
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.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
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.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.