It's a question of the percentages - As online shopping gets more mainstream and older/more mature buyers start ordering online, the percentage of users misusing consumer friendly policies will come down..
Speaking for myself, I would have happily made a return for the flimsiest of reasons when I was in high school/college (of course there was no such option back then)
It has nothing to do with maturity, lack of education or percentages. It's all about cheap
desi thinking. Indians are infamous for misusing such policies the world over.
Whenever I visited Walmart or Target store in US, I could see lots of
desis in the returns queue. They were mature, highly educated and probably even green card holders. One particular
desi drew my attention as he was arguing over usage marks on a baby stroller. Clearly, that
desi took along the stroller with him on his India vacation and was trying to return it after showing his US-standard-of-living to his relatives.
As I interacted with more
desis in the US, I realized almost all of them misuse the return policies. Some US stores have very relaxed return policies, when it comes to clothing etc. A lot of times I saw my colleagues' India vacation pics on Facebook in clothes/shoes which they never wore in the US. I then found out that it was a trend among my
desi colleagues to buy clothes before each India visit and return them afterwards. And it didn't end there... they stole laptops/cameras too! Modus operandi was to order a costly laptop when their US assignment was about to end. Remove few keys, click pics and file for replacement. A lot of companies ship the replacement immediately, without asking to return the damaged one first. After receiving the replacement, they would just fly back to India with 2 laptops.
It's probably because of our cheap
desis that Apple/Verizon now levy heavy fines upon breaking the iPhone contract. Back then, there weren't much checks (credit score etc) and one could easily have an iPhone in their hands by paying just $200. All of my desi colleagues got an iPhone Ver1 during that period in the US.
And one rotten
desi kela spoiled it for everyone living in a particular US zip code. This
desi would ask his US colleagues to order Macbooks on his behalf, citing various payment issues. Apple delivered 3 laptops but he told them that he never got the delivery. He then ran away to India with 3 laptops, but paid for only 1. Probably he got the refund too but Apple investigated this issue and after finding out the real story, banned him and everybody living in that community (
desi or not).
Amazon did the right thing by showing Indians where they belong!
And Amazon is not the first one to show Indians their right place. It's been more than a decade that lots of B&M high-end fashion stores don't accept any kind of returns... and for purchases made on certain big sales days, they don't even entertain replacements. Lots of no-name
desi B&M stores have now started copying them but it isn't Amazon to bring in such India specific return policies... they were just too late in implementing them.
Majority of Indians can never change for good, no matter how much they progress in life.
