The Jeff Beckham Weblog

Casting a vote for simplicity in today’s gadgets, it turns out that only 5 percent of electronics that are returned are actually defective. Customers say (or think) that they’re broken, when actually, they’re either too hard to use or don’t meet their expectations.

A report by Accenture says that 68 percent of returned electronics fall into that category, while an additional 27 percent are returned because of buyer’s remorse. That means only 5 percent of returns were items that were defective.

Terry Steger of Accenture says making products easier to set up and use would reduce the return rate significantly. The report cited a 2006 study that determined that the average U.S. consumer spends only 20 minutes trying to make a device work before giving up and returning it to the seller.