What’s Your Take on 24 Hour Market Return Policy?
I’ve been getting a few Tweets and emails about the newfangled Market payment system. I’ve personally been quite impressed with the streamlined, slick way the payments are handled. I love the fact that I can login to my Google Checkout account online and see all of my purchases, cancellations, and refunds in one place, instantly. In fact, it reminds me of the rest of the Google services on the G1 – they sync seamlessly with the web, almost instantly. I thought that the iPhone’s push services were fast until I bought the G1. However, all things said, I’ve also received quite a few disheartened emails from developers about the return policy. To me, and the rest of the app “consumers” in the Market-o-sphere, this return policy seems pretty logical. It’s a great way to preview an app without worrying about bugs. However, a few of the devs mentioned that this system almost encourages the return of apps. And once I think about it, if I was a dev, I’d be a little afraid with the 24 hour return policy on apps.
I’ve noticed in the few days that I’ve been able purchase apps that I’ve return around 90% of them. I only chose apps with around 3.5 to 4 stars to try out to see what the cream of the crop looked like, and in fact, most of them were actually pretty useful and innovative. But I always had something in the back of my mind telling me, “Hey, this app is okay…but guess what? You don’t really like it…and you still have 23 hours to return it…so, wait until you find a really good application and then drop a couple bones on it.” So, in essence, since I had the choice to return the app and not make do with my purchase, I almost always returned it. Back in my iPhone days, I read reviews of an app, purchased it, and regardless if it was well made, used it. For example, I’ve downloaded Duke Nuke ‘Em and Midnight Pool to try out. I felt like they were well made for the most part, but got bored, and just returned the game. Now, if the purchase was final, I probably would have kept it and played the game out. The developers of these two games now get zero of my dollars. So, at first look I really, really like the new payment scheme for Market – it is incredibly smooth and streamlined, and the 24 hour return period is nice to knock off the bad apps – but I’m now wary of purchasing an app and not giving it a thorough look over before I uninstall and refund. Hopefully, a happy medium of sales and return will be reached where the developer gets the sales he/she deserves for their well-made app, and the sub-par developer will make a smaller amount because his app simply wasn’t as good. This is the way it should be, and I think overall the Market scheme is taking it in stride, but it all needs to be carefully done.
So, what’s your take of this Market pricing scheme? Are you a dev or consumer or both? Like it? Love it? Gotta Have It?
Twitter me up about it, too!