GUARANTEES FOR EPRODUCTS? HOW? NECESSARY?

I know the importance of offering a guarantee to convert "on-the-fence" visitors to online customers.

Here are my questions:

1. Do I need a money back guarantee for an eBook with this low a price? (Let's face it, $24.95 is the cost of a tank of gas, not exactly a high-risk purchase.)

2. If yes, how can I offer it? After all, when a customer downloads the eBook, they have it. It's not like they can return it!

3. Anyone know of eBook download software that's easy to use and fully automated? Click and buy?

Hi...

I sell a few low priced ebooks on the net - and i make enough money now from sales that i can work from home.

For one of my ebooks, which is selling for $19.95... i have only had 2 refunds out of like 400 sold.

Did those people delete the ebook after i refunded their money? I don't know, and to tell you the truth... i dont care.

I would rather have 2 refunds and 400 sales WITH the guarantee... then have 0 refunds and only 300 sales WITHOUT the guarantee. Get what i'm saying?

The majority of people don't cheat you and dont ask for a refund.

One very clever thing you can do to REDUCE refunds for an e-product is to send something tangible in the post (like a report or a mouse pad or something). Then, if they want a refund for your ebook - tell them to return the little bonus gift you cent them and that once they do you will send the refund. And many people just couldnt be bothered to do that... especially if your product only cost $30 bucks or something.... people are too lazy.

Personally, i would say... offer a refund. It's a silly thing to ever think about taking out of your salesletter and something that wouldnt even enter my head.

I've sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of info products and have Never offered a refund, at www.daytradinguniversity.com.

I say something along the lines of, "Like Amazon.com, we do not offer refunds for copyable materials or course access" ... since you can't return opened DVDs to walmart, why would I consider letting someone return an expensive DVD etc..

I know this flies in the face of conventional copywriting advice, but it has worked stunningly well for me.

I offer ample free samples for people to see what they're buying ahead of time, and can make a more informed buying decision... so I have never offered refunds for my trading videos etc.

For my www.writingadwords.com DVD course, I offer a money back guarantee, and have had just 1 request out of many thousands of dollars of orders. I'm likely to pull the MBG off that site too.

Great tip re combining a tangible product, and requiring it to be returned, to get a refund, agree 99% of people won't bother packing up something to take to the post office etc.

Ken

Ken,

I do offer money-back guarantees on most things I sell, including downloadable reports, and I find that almost no one abuses them - maybe just one person a year. I stopped calling it a "no-questions-asked" money-back guarantee because I benefit by asking questions and I figure that's feedback they owe me in exchange for their money back. Best of all, I benefit from the feedback and have used it to increase sales.

When I get a refund request, I make it clear that I will process it, AND I ask for the reason they didn't like it. In many cases, the person was expecting something other than what they got. Often, I then adjust the product description accordingly, and sales generally go up.

In a few situations I offer a very limited money-back guarantee. For instance, for my seminars there is a cut-off date after which the tuition can't be refunded - unless they or I find someone to take their place. And even then, if they attend and are not happy with the value they are receiving and let me know before lunchtime on the first day, they can get their money refunded.

I think a business owner's appropriate guarantee policy partly depends on the market one is selling to. It goes the other way, too: one's guarantee policy sends out a message that attracts some people, repels some and leaves others indifferent.

Marcia Yudkin

Speaking as a buyer, rather than a marketer, I have bought many ebooks BECAUSE they had a guarantee - it was the thing that tipped the balance in my decision.

From my point of view as a buyer, the person making the offer may be someone I've never heard of or I haven't experienced their work before, so they are an unknown quantity. I can't know in advance whether their writing or information will be good or whether I'll receive value in proportion to what I've paid. The problem with self-publishing is that there's no editor or publishing company to add any quality control to the process, so people are naturally more leary. Conversely, I wouldn't expect guarantees from a conventional publisher - the guarantee comes in the form of their track record and the general perception that "if it's in print, it must be true".

On the other hand, I have asked for my money back on a number of occasions. This usually happens when the product has been "oversold" i.e. they made it sound like I was going to get something really dramatic and special, and whatever they delivered was somewhere between mundane and truly bad. Or, the price just isn't right for what's delivered. However, when I feel that I've received value that is equal to or greater than the price paid, I never ask for my money back.

I am now more careful about what purchases I make because I don't like asking for a refund.

So, for me as a buyer, the guarantee definitely works - there are lots of things I'm satisfied with that I may not have bought without the guarantee. However, I think you've got to be confident that you're delivering the value you advertise and that you have a good product. If the aim of the game is maximum numbers of sales, then a guarantee is probably a very good thing. And at the end of the day, you can always pull it, so why not give it a go?

Jane

PS when I've experienced the person and their work through, say, a free teleclass, and I've convinced myself that I want their system or book, a guarantee is less important.

Jane

Great point, Marcia -- agree re asking questions is critical, especially if a customer is unhappy about something, I'm always very eager to ask for feedback, and usually change something about my business or delivery of service, as a result.

I use a 40-to-1 rule of thumb, eg if I get a complaint from just 1 person, I assume that at least 40 others feel the same way, and I lost that many sales, but the others just didn't take the time to tell me, so this one person is a "representative sample", that I pay careful attention to.

For example, I'll ask a clarifying email question, if their complaint is too generic to be actionable, as in "I couldn't read your stock charts" ... I'll ask probing questions, so I can fix whatever the complaint was about.

Agree too re market that one's selling to. If I'm in a market in which I'm well published and known to (like trading, or quality mgmt), I'm less likely to offer guarantees, since I'm more of a "known quantity".

If I'm unknown in a market, then I realize I need to offer a guarantee, to overcome buying resistance. So that's part of it too. And good point re teleseminars and other means, eg if people see a lot of preview video footage of me, or have participated in some online course, they "know me" better, and are more likely to be 'qualified prospects' who are good buyers.

Ken

I offer a lifetime money back guarantee on a kit I sell online and never had a refund request. All I ask is for the person to show me they put in a serious effort to use what Ive recommended and if they don't recover the cost of it many times over, they'll get a refund. Ive been selling this for 3 years now and no refund requests.

On the other hand, I dont offer a refund on my copywriting services because I make it clear upfront I have no control over what they do to my copy. If they modify it just a little, or they get no traffic, etc. And I still have clients backed up a few weeks.

So I feel people respond best to sincerity and frankness. Pull no punches, you won't get your a$$ kicked later.

Thanks for the great tips!

Steven,

The guarantee feels a bit aggressive to me.

Personally, I don't like guarantees that are conditional on my taking some particular action (in this case, reading the book and trying some of the techniques) because it makes me feel that I couldn't prove what I'd done and I wouldn't want to get into an argument about it. My reaction to these kinds of guarantees is that the guarantee giver might be trying to find reasons not to refund my money. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, but that's how it makes me feel. But I am not your target market.

I would add to what Sammer said by saying that we usually get what we expect in life, so if we expect people to be trustworthy and honourable, then most of them will be.

Jane