Thread: Money back guarantee for downloadable products

If you sold information products which your customer download after making the payment, would it be reasonable to offer money back guarantee to your customer? How would your customer return the purchased item? How does it technically work?

I don't think there would be a point to returning a digital product. It would do the seller no good because it isn't physical merchandise. Many ebooks sellers do offer money back guarantees, however. Just make sure you're clear about the terms.

That's a really tricky issue, because once downloaded you can't control what they do with it. I would go with offering a clear and decent sized sample of the file, along with a good description. If you really must offer some kind of compensation maybe it could be towards a new product rather than a cash refund.

Really if you think about it, once a product is downloaded the customer has it on their hard drive, so it won't be returned. The seller isn't really out any money because it's a digital product, so offering a money back guarantee is a good way of making a potential buyer feel more secure in their purchase.

What about setting the product (say software) in such a way that it will not be accessible after a certain time span? If, after the money back guarantee period is over the client decides to keep the product, he can get the restriction removed.

I can see both sides of this situation. Sometimes the customer really is disappointed with the product and has no use for it; other times, they may be trying to scam the seller by essentially getting the download for free. I think it's up to the individual merchant to determine how sensitive and vulnerable their material is.

There would not be a product to return because it's only digital and so the seller is not out any money. I have asked for a refund when a digital product does not live up to my expectations. Sometime I think if the seller put as much effort into product creation as he does into the sales page, the product would be awesome. The same thing applies from the other side. Unless the digital product was an article or PLR, I would offer a money-back guarantee.