Are High Return Rates Spoiling Android’s Strong Sales?

[WoZzY]

Are High Return Rates Spoiling Android’s Strong Sales?

by Kevin Krause on July 26th, 2011 at 7:56 am

Over the past two year’s Android has rocketed from holding virtually no market share to leading smartphone platforms the world over in terms of handsets shipped, beating out the likes of Apple and RIM. It has been shown in countless statistic after countless statistic, and surveys and projections don’t show Google’s green monster slowing down anytime soon. But are consumers ultimately not satisfied with the Android product? According to sources speaking to TechCrunch, the answer in some cases is yes at a rate of 30 to 40 percent. Emphasis on some cases.
Yes, the iPhone carries a very satisfactory return rate of around 1.7 percent. Yes, we can believe that some Android handsets are getting returned at a rate nearing 50 percent, but not Android handsets as a whole. The truth is, Apple makes one phone, allowing the company greater quality control over their hardware and user experience. Google licenses Android to handset manufacturers, and some don’t even go so far as to even get official support from the company behind the platform. Half-baked user interfaces built on top of some Android handsets might rightfully detract from a user’s view of their new handset. Still, if we could get some hard numbers we’d be willing to bet that handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S II (which sold 3 million units in 55 days), HTC EVO 3D and others of that caliber would sport return rates much lower than 30 to 40 percent (it’s true that at one point the Motorola Droid 2 held the lowest return rate of all handsets in Verizon’s lineup).
So take the reported numbers as you will, but we suspect that the supposedly high rate of return on a small portion of devices won’t greatly affect Android’s global figures. We’re just not buying it.
[via TechCrunch]


SOURCE: PHANDROID

[OneTenderRebel]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping. It seems like nearly every phone released now has some major flaw. Whether it be the inability to work with LTE or battery life or reboots or whatever else. I understand that with companies putting their own UI on these phones its bound to cause issues but these phones shouldn't be released until that's all sorted out. You can't tell me that these phones had zero issues in testing but as soon as they get into consumers hands they go bad. Until they can strictly enforce a universal UI or thoroughly test phones before release, return rates will always be high.

To be or not to be........................wait what was the question? This signature has been Tapatalk approved.

[WoZzY]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping. It seems like nearly every phone released now has some major flaw. Whether it be the inability to work with LTE or battery life or reboots or whatever else. I understand that with companies putting their own UI on these phones its bound to cause issues but these phones shouldn't be released until that's all sorted out. You can't tell me that these phones had zero issues in testing but as soon as they get into consumers hands they go bad. Until they can strictly enforce a universal UI or thoroughly test phones before release, return rates will always be high.

To be or not to be........................wait what was the question? This signature has been Tapatalk approved.

I agree with you man the companys need to test a lot better

[OneTenderRebel]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping. It seems like nearly every phone released now has some major flaw. Whether it be the inability to work with LTE or battery life or reboots or whatever else. I understand that with companies putting their own UI on these phones its bound to cause issues but these phones shouldn't be released until that's all sorted out. You can't tell me that these phones had zero issues in testing but as soon as they get into consumers hands they go bad. Until they can strictly enforce a universal UI or thoroughly test phones before release, return rates will always be high.

To be or not to be........................wait what was the question? This signature has been Tapatalk approved.

I agree with you man the companys need to test a lot better

Thankfully this won't be the downfall of Android or anything like that. Maybe it's reason to panic a little for the manufactures but Android is still somewhat new to the game and they have plenty of time to work out these issues. I don't think we will EVER see the day but if there comes a day where Google forces all manufactures to use the Stock android UI I will dance the most gnarly Irish Jig anyone has ever seen. But it's all about the money in the end so it won't happen.

[rck76]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping. It seems like nearly every phone released now has some major flaw. Whether it be the inability to work with LTE or battery life or reboots or whatever else. I understand that with companies putting their own UI on these phones its bound to cause issues but these phones shouldn't be released until that's all sorted out. You can't tell me that these phones had zero issues in testing but as soon as they get into consumers hands they go bad. Until they can strictly enforce a universal UI or thoroughly test phones before release, return rates will always be high.

To be or not to be........................wait what was the question? This signature has been Tapatalk approved.

I agree with you man the companys need to test a lot better

Hmm...maybe they're starting to. Bionic release date keeps getting pushed back. Maybe they are trying to release a bug free phone. (Yeah right, like that'll ever happen, lol)

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums

[bplewis24]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping.

When the iPhone4 was released it had no less than 2 major flaws (broken proximity sensor & antenna defect) and it still held it's normal return rate.

This isn't about flawed phones...because they're ALL flawed. The iPhone doesn't have LTE, do people return it? No. This is about consumers having a lower standard for some companies than others, as well as Android having a "low-end" option of phones that people eventually realize are cheap for a reason (they're crappy).

The reality is that if you're in the iPhone ecosystem, you have NO options, therefore it never feels like you're missing any features from your phone unless you look OUTSIDE the ecosystem. But if you're in the Android world, you have trade-offs: do I want 3D or a keyboard? Do I want LTE or do I want FFC? Do I want a qHD pentile screen or a 800x400 S-AMOLED screen? Do I want Vanilla Android or Sense 3.0?

When people look at it this way, it gives the perception that all phones are flawed because no phone ever has all of the same features. That's the benefit and the detriment of choice. With choice you get to choose your best option, but it also seems like no phone is perfect. In a form of mental manipulation, if you take every single option away from a consumer and make an inferior product, it at least seems as though there is no alternative, so the phone is perfect by default in that it's not only the best option available, it's the only option.

The iPhone will always have less returns. Even when they're products are proven to not "just work" they still have the highest consumer satisfaction rates among their peers. It has much more to do with the customers than the product. For whatever reason, when consumers buy other products, they demand they work exactly as they want them to or they perceive it as a lower quality product. If the same thing happens to an Apple product, they ignore it until it's fixed and retain their assumption that there is no higher quality product.

Brandon

[OneTenderRebel]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping.

When the iPhone4 was released it had no less than 2 major flaws (broken proximity sensor & antenna defect) and it still held it's normal return rate.

This isn't about flawed phones...because they're ALL flawed. The iPhone doesn't have LTE, do people return it? No. This is about consumers having a lower standard for some companies than others, as well as Android having a "low-end" option of phones that people eventually realize are cheap for a reason (they're crappy).

The reality is that if you're in the iPhone ecosystem, you have NO options, therefore it never feels like you're missing any features from your phone unless you look OUTSIDE the ecosystem. But if you're in the Android world, you have trade-offs: do I want 3D or a keyboard? Do I want LTE or do I want FFC? Do I want a qHD pentile screen or a 800x400 S-AMOLED screen? Do I want Vanilla Android or Sense 3.0?

When people look at it this way, it gives the perception that all phones are flawed because no phone ever has all of the same features. That's the benefit and the detriment of choice. With choice you get to choose your best option, but it also seems like no phone is perfect. In a form of mental manipulation, if you take every single option away from a consumer and make an inferior product, it at least seems as though there is no alternative, so the phone is perfect by default in that it's not only the best option available, it's the only option.

The iPhone will always have less returns. Even when they're products are proven to not "just work" they still have the highest consumer satisfaction rates among their peers. It has much more to do with the customers than the product. For whatever reason, when consumers buy other products, they demand they work exactly as they want them to or they perceive it as a lower quality product. If the same thing happens to an Apple product, they ignore it until it's fixed and retain their assumption that there is no higher quality product.

Brandon

It's true, as a customer if you are loyal to one brand only you don't know what else to compare your product to. Like Toyota with the millions upon millions of recalls, I don't even know if it really ended up hurting them sales wise. I know they took a hit fixing everything but sales were only down due to the economy, not the recalls. The iPhone issue to me would have been filed in the "definitely return this junk" file but it truly was amazing how so many people just accepted their 25 cent bumper to fix the issue and never thought of it again.

[bplewis24]

I'm going to attempt to elaborate on my point a bit in an attempt to make it more concise. I will give you two perspectives: one from an Apple owner, and another from an Android owner.

Android owner:

They go in and buy an Incredible 2. They heard great things about Android, and this phone is pretty cheap. Take it home, play with it for a few days and decide they don't like something about it (could be battery life, could be lack of LTE, could be the feel of the device). Maybe there's a bug in Sense that causes a force close to the camera app during a specific process? Now they want a new phone because they assume either Android is crap or that particular phone is crap. The thought process is then, what other phone could I get? The Droid X2? The Samsung Charge? The Droid 3? What's better/worse about all of those phones that makes them more expensive?

iPhone owner:

They just bought the newest iPhone (4). Take it home and play with it for a few days. They like some things and other things seem annoying or confusing at first until they get the hang of it. But there's a few bugs that don't seem right. Maybe they notice every time they get a call they end up hanging up on the person. Maybe their bluetooth connection constantly craps out when they bring up their keyboard, or perhaps they're getting abnormal battery drain during idle. Well, the mentality is this: everybody else that has this phone loves it, and there is no "better" iPhone, so the "bugs" are either temporary, or I'm doing something wrong to cause it and I will figure it out.

That's the difference in mentalities. If you don't believe iOS has these types of bugs, check out some of the comments in this article from a while back: Report: Apple to release iOS 4.3.1 within 2 weeks | iPad Atlas - CNET Reviews

Notice some of the complaints sound eerily familiar to issues on other smartphone platforms:

• lost the ability to connect to their home wifi networks
• I have extremely FAST battery drain... I've isolated the
  problem to using a free app
• I have experienced lot of choppy animation on springboard such as opening and closing apps, skipping animations, jerky animation in general
• What about fixing that gpu bug that happens to the wifi symbol and push messages
• fix the stupid daylight savings time glitch. Now my bluetooth doesn't work

So my point is that, yes, at the low end there are some crappy Android phones that result in a high rate of returns and can't compare to an iPhone. At the higher end, though, the level of software and hardware is comparable for iOS and Android, and the amount of options available to the Android owner makes them a bit pickier in what they will put up with in their phones. If they don't like the Droid 3, they return it for something else.

These days things are getting a bit different because NOW you can have iPhone and high-level Android options on the same carriers, so it will be interesting to see how things change going forward.

Brandon

[czerdrill]

Use whatever excuse you want but the truth is Android can't keep the revolving door from stopping.

When the iPhone4 was released it had no less than 2 major flaws (broken proximity sensor & antenna defect) and it still held it's normal return rate.

This isn't about flawed phones...because they're ALL flawed. The iPhone doesn't have LTE, do people return it? No. This is about consumers having a lower standard for some companies than others, as well as Android having a "low-end" option of phones that people eventually realize are cheap for a reason (they're crappy).

The reality is that if you're in the iPhone ecosystem, you have NO options, therefore it never feels like you're missing any features from your phone unless you look OUTSIDE the ecosystem. But if you're in the Android world, you have trade-offs: do I want 3D or a keyboard? Do I want LTE or do I want FFC? Do I want a qHD pentile screen or a 800x400 S-AMOLED screen? Do I want Vanilla Android or Sense 3.0?

When people look at it this way, it gives the perception that all phones are flawed because no phone ever has all of the same features. That's the benefit and the detriment of choice. With choice you get to choose your best option, but it also seems like no phone is perfect. In a form of mental manipulation, if you take every single option away from a consumer and make an inferior product, it at least seems as though there is no alternative, so the phone is perfect by default in that it's not only the best option available, it's the only option.

The iPhone will always have less returns. Even when they're products are proven to not "just work" they still have the highest consumer satisfaction rates among their peers. It has much more to do with the customers than the product. For whatever reason, when consumers buy other products, they demand they work exactly as they want them to or they perceive it as a lower quality product. If the same thing happens to an Apple product, they ignore it until it's fixed and retain their assumption that there is no higher quality product.

Brandon

It's true, as a customer if you are loyal to one brand only you don't know what else to compare your product to. Like Toyota with the millions upon millions of recalls, I don't even know if it really ended up hurting them sales wise. I know they took a hit fixing everything but sales were only down due to the economy, not the recalls. The iPhone issue to me would have been filed in the "definitely return this junk" file but it truly was amazing how so many people just accepted their 25 cent bumper to fix the issue and never thought of it again.

But on the same token it's equally amazing that so many people here accept the "just root and fix it yourself" mentality when they're clearly being sold defective products (like the TB).

Apple's "you're holding it wrong" thing was stupid, I think we can all agree on that, however, it's no less stupid then the suggestions that defective android phones are somehow better because you can fix the multitude of problems yourself as if that's something you should be expected to do...

[brad92]

I love Android, but I definitely believe Apple has better hardware and less lemons. I beat the hell out of my first gen ipod touch and it has never given me a problem. I pre ordered it new.

On the other hand, my first Droid X bricked the first day I activated it and gave me all kinds of problems. My second one has been better, but it took me rooting and ROM'ing it to fix its issues.

SSX v2.0