Store Returns

In My Humble Opinion
1

A post in the “Viewmaster” thread in General Questions made me wonder something. The poster mentioned he received a talking Viewmaster that didn’t work, so his dad took it apart to fix it. When I think back to my childhood, I don’t think we ever returned things to the store. My dad was also one to take things apart and fix them himself. I assume things back in the 60s and 70s were made better and were probably easier to take apart and repair. If something breaks right away or doesn’t work properly now, we return it to the store. I don’t even remember having the option to return clothing that didn’t fit. If it was too big we kept it until we “grew into it” or my mom would take it in or hem it up. If it was too small, it went to the next sister in line.

I wonder if the return policies were stricter than they are now or if it was just too much trouble to make a return.

2

I can only speak about one industry, consumer electronics, but there are probably similar things going on in other industries.
Early in the 2000s, it was determined in my company at the time that the goal was to sell products that would be discarded and replaced every 5 years, so we stopped considering quality or repair in our design efforts, only cost down. All our competitors did the same thing.
Was it a good idea? Well, there used to be about 20 to 25 major competitors in the market and now you will probably see about 5 different brands in the electronics department.