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Why Is the Return Rate for GPS Receivers So High?
DigiTimes, which reports on Taiwanese electronics manufacturers, reports that Wal-Mart may be thinking about dropping GPS receivers due to a high return rate — 40 per cent at Wal-Mart, 25 per cent elsewhere. (Wal-Mart, unlike Best Buy, doesn’t charge a restocking fee when you return something.) Rich is surprised by this, as am I: why is the return rate so high?
The only thing I can think of is a disconnect between what people think they’re getting and what they in fact get: I don’t own a GPS myself, but my impression is that they’re a bit harder to use and inscrutable than, say, an iPod. When you buy an iPod or a cellphone, you not only know why you’re using it, but you have at least a rudimentary idea how — these devices are essentially digital refinements of older, familiar technology. But a GPS receiver might be one of those things people think they should get, like a PDA; but unlike a PDA, operating one is less obvious: the how is less well-formed than the why.
I’d love to know what’s driving this return rate. Guessing’s fun, but some hard data would be really useful.
Categories: GPS
Re your Question
Not hard data but this is my guess.
They take it home, figure out how to use it and see what it tells them, and then they say to themselves; Gee, I don’t have a boat to navigate, and it will be years before I find myself in a strange city where I don’t know where I’m going, so what am I going to do with this. Then they take it back.
It sounds like it would be fun to have , but once you have figured out how to use it, and then realize you have no use for it, it seems like a waste of money.
Ken
Ken Phipps | 01/19/2007 at 11:17 AM | #
I think a lot of people don’t realize that GPS devices don’t work indoors, in enclosed spaces, in forests and basically anywhere where there isn’t access to sky.
I also think Apple needs to make an iPhone, with GPS _and_ with cellphone-tower based positioning as a backup, and with lots of widgets that let you actually _do_ something with your positioning data.
Stefan | 01/19/2007 at 11:58 AM | #
I also think people see the GPS car commercials on TV and build an idea about what GPS does (talks to me, tells me where to go, etc.) When they get the units home, they don’t actually do much. I think people are looking for GPS to do what a map does, but with less effort. GPS may display a background map, but it is such a small screen, it isn’t nearly as useful as a good road atlas. Then there may be the “my buddy has one, so I need one too” effect.
Philip | 01/19/2007 at 12:00 PM | #
Maybe folks get them home only to find out they need another couple hundred dollars worth of software to have the unit they wanted.
Keith | 01/19/2007 at 12:19 PM | #
I once bought a Magellan Explorist at Wal-Mart,
took it home, put in the batteries, turned it on,
and waited and waited for it to initialize. Never could get it to initialize. Looked on Magellan’s web for how to reset it, but it seemed as though I would have to send it to Magellan to be reset, so returned it to Wal-Mart.
Chuck | 01/19/2007 at 12:59 PM | #
I think there’s a key difference between Car Navigation Systems, which are easy to use and valuable vs. personal GPS units. I wonder if the data groups these together, since I suspect that the personal GPS units are returned more often than the car nav.
Mike | 01/19/2007 at 1:05 PM | #
I agreee with the previous posters and that it is probably customers buying regular GPS devices, and not driving ones like “tom-tom” they see ads for. They just don’t know the difference between the two and the WalMart staff MIGHT (just a guess) not be trained enough to know the difference either.
Mike | 01/19/2007 at 4:02 PM | #
I’ve never bought a GPS from a brick & mortar store, but it could have something to do with the base maps being fairly useless (on handheld Garmin units, at least). I don’t know how clear Walmart makes it that you will probably have to drop another $80-$100 on a DVD of maps before you can actually see any useful roads on it.
Erik | 01/19/2007 at 4:57 PM | #
walmart shoppers,wow they found the way back to the store.
jerry | 01/20/2007 at 1:25 AM | #
I hope people aren’t just grabbing anything off the shelf that has the word “GPS” on it. There are lots of GPS units that are simply the electronics to be plugged into another device like a labtop or car navigational system.
And if they’re buying those less expensive compass-like GPS systems, well, good luck. It took my brothers a year to figure out theirs and it basically only displayed jagged lines and dots with optional software modules to buy have prettier landscape pics.
So for their birthdays I actually bought them a good handheld compass from Radio Shack (a cool item, electronic, waterproof, nice backlit, gives you temp and degrees, cost under $10.00) which they could understand and actually use.
Mark | 01/20/2007 at 3:51 AM | #
I agree with the answers posted so far. Most likely it’s a case of people expecting more form handhelds than they actually get.
Also, remember that most Wal-Marts are located in rural areas. These rural locations do a huge business in sporting goods, mostly hunting and fishing gear. I’m guessing sportsmen buy these cheap units, expecting great graphics and detailed maps, only to find that many of the obscure paths they follow aren’t even on the maps.
Roger Hart | 01/20/2007 at 11:05 AM | #
“walmart shoppers,wow they found the way back to the store.”
Jerry, you crack me up.
They found their way back to the store — when they still had a GPS device. We don’t know whether they got home again after returning the GPS.
Bill Strutz | 01/20/2007 at 3:39 PM | #
My guess would be that people buy the product at wal-mart because they know wal-mart has cheap prices, go on their vacation, then a week or two later - return it. Since Wal-Mart’s primary customer is not loyal, they just want the product at the cheapest price possible, and to hell w/ wal-mart, they take it back w/o any difficulty, so who cares?
Andrew | 01/22/2007 at 11:38 AM | #