Sunday, August 31, 2014

[Update: cancelled as of Sept. 2016] "Sounds crazy and absurd" -- the lifelong return policy goes German

The bad news: The world is going to hell in a handbasket!

The good news: You can return the handbasket for life, no questions asked.
At least in Germany, if you bought your accessory for hell from IKEA. 

Famous for the flat pack, our Swedish born friends have introduced the flat guarantee to Germany. Save the receipt, enjoy your IKEA kitchen, and bring it back in ten years.

Our regional newspaper introduced its readers to the concept like this: "It sounds crazy and absurd, but..."

You see, in Germany, the lifelong return policy is big news indeed because it widens Germans' idea of customer service.

Having gone from an indifferent "ah", or "what you want" to "lifelong return" within little more than one generation is interesting indeed, because it raises a few questions.

1. Will IKEA bought stuff become a standard item in German prenups and divorce settlements?

Can German lawyers, courts, legal translators, paralegals be trusted to recognize that "Billy" or "Bjorn" may be a book shelf and a lamp and not two children for which visitation rights and child support need to be set?

2. Have IKEA and the others considered German trash collection and recycling issues?

Light bulbs a German customer might simply chuck into the trash despite a bit of mercury in the bulb might warrant a note by the retailer: remove all of this hazardous stuff  before you show up at the store in a brand new Beamer  to return the five Euro clip-on lamp.

3. Will IKEA become the darling of Germany's social benefits officials?

The mean tested [sic] minuscule benefits a German may find himself on after just a year of unemployment looks like a wet dream for the government folks.
Sure, we'll take some 20 Euros a month out of your meager check, but you need to give us the receipt. We'll then go to IKEA in 20 years and get them to give us a new one.

But, dear retailers, thank you for trying to introduce the concept to Germany.

Land's End, we love you.

[Update August 2015]
Saw a newspaper article a few days ago that said customers are not taking advantage of the policy. The article then went on to say that Ikea's lifelong return policy has been in effect for a little over six months in Germany.
That's half the standard one year warranty time around here, no time at all. Don't even quality paper journos understand the "lifelong" in lifelong return policy?
[End of Update]

[Update 8/17/2016] This is a sad day for the blogster. It* had hoped to read examples of astute German welfare bureaucrats telling their "customers" to shop at Ikea and provide proof by submitting scanned receipts with their basic furniture allowance applications.

Instead, Ikea just cancelled the lifetime warranty, effective September 1. In the future, Ikea shoppers will have one year to return unwanted goods for a refund or an exchange. The linked article in Der Spiegel happily quotes company officials saying that "far over 90% of returns occur within two to three months after purchase".

Had anybody bothered to ask, say, the Land's End people, they would have told you that this has been true forever.

They might also have told you that this is not the point of a lifetime warranty.

* The blogster decided to go full on gender neutral years ago.  






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