I was stumbling around consumerist.com when I found an article titled, "How Does an Unlimited Return Policy Help L.L. Bean" which instantly caught my eye since I am from a town about 8 miles down the road from the original L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine. Aside from pulling at my heart strings with this little reminder of home, it got me thinking about how this marketing technique helps this company make over a billion dollars every year.
Over the years I have heard about the people who go to Goodwill, find an L.L. Bean snowsuit or maybe a fleece for probably less than ten dollars, and then bring it back to the store in Freeport and return it for store credit even though they didn't purchase the item themselves in the first place. To me this sounds a little unethical and it looks like an abuse of a great service L.L. Bean offers their costumers to assure the quality of their products, but deep down, I can't feel too badly.
Corporate must know this abuse is going on, but if they weren't able to profit from a slightly flawed system, they would enable it, right? Clearly this is so. L.L.Bean understands that with this return policy, costumers who do take advantage of the policy in the right way, such as when their brand new $80 rain coat rips two months after purchase (speaking from personal experience), will go home to tell their friends and family what an awesome store L.L.Bean is and attract new or returning costumers back into their store. It also works with those who use the policy dishonestly. So the cheap-o who goes to Goodwill and buys some ratty old flannel for four dollars and brings it to the customer service desk and then leaves with a $40 store credit to L.L.Bean will too go home and tell their friends and family what a great place L.L.Bean is.
As they have been a highly profitable enterprise for now over one hundred years, I think L.L.Bean knows that they're doing when it comes to business.
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