[lissimore]

Hey, it's Andrew from Headphones.com. I wanted to make a quick post to announce our sponsorship of Head-Fi.

We're thrilled to be able to support this institution of headphone knowledge and we're excited to be more accessible to all our customers who contribute here on Head-Fi.

Let me know if you have any questions about Headphones.com, our 365-Day return policy, or if you just want to chat about headphones.

All the best,
Andrew

 

[lissimore]

I'll make a separate post about this, but we're also selling the Focal Elear for $479 right now.

https://www.headphones.com/products/focal-elear-over-ear-open-back-headphones

 

[text]

You guys helped me choose my AKG K701s back in 2006, so I've appreciated you for a while.

 

[rutter]

How does the 365-day return policy work and how does it make sense? Was always curious.

 

[lissimore]

How does the 365-day return policy work and how does it make sense? Was always curious.

That's a great question.

We love headphones and wanted to build the kind of headphone store we always wished existed. So we decided to build our return policy for our best customers instead of building it for the lowest common denominator (in this case, people who abuse return policies). There will always be a handful of people who abuse policies like ours but we don't think that should ruin it for everyone else. It's important to us that you are able to try gear without a ticking clock in the back of your mind so that you know for sure that it's something you want to own for the long-term.

The policy allows you to buy any item from Headphones.com and return it for a full refund within 365 days. The returned item needs to include all original packaging (we understand if sometimes the packaging needs to be ripped in order to unbox the product) and it needs to be in like-new condition. We'll still take it back if it's not in like new condition, but then we'll charge a restocking fee.

As for how it makes sense, that's a tougher question. We basically chose to give up short term profit so we could give customers a better experience. We believe that orienting towards an unbelievable customer experience is the right thing to do. It's more fun, and we hope it's the right long-term strategy.

An added benefit is that our return policy forces us to curate our product selection very carefully. (If a product can't stand up to 365-day returns we're forced to remove it from the site).

An important note: Everything we sell on Headphones.com is brand-new and unopened unless it's designated as "open-box." If the quality of a returned item is not "like-new" then we won't sell it on our site, we will either sell it on eBay or through a 3rd party.

I hope that helps.

Andrew

 

[rutter]

Interesting. So you tolerate people who go through a bunch of products, some of whom would be doing it legitimately? Do you ever ban or restrict people who appear to be exploiting the policy and where do you draw the line?

 

[lissimore]

Interesting. So you tolerate people who go through a bunch of products, some of whom would be doing it legitimately? Do you ever ban or restrict people who appear to be exploiting the policy and where do you draw the line?

We don't only tolerate it, we encourage it. Headphones are about experience and we want people to experience them before needing to make a huge investment. That being said, we expect most people to be reasonable and do their research before picking up a few pairs.

While we don't put hard limits on what people can do we have restricted 2 customers (out of thousands). In both cases, they were obviously abusing the policy and not using it for its intended purpose. So we don't actually draw a line, we just try to be fair and we expect our customers to be fair as well.

 

[rutter]

Well, what I would do and in effect have done is not picking multiple pairs at a time as that's too much money but picking one pair that through my research or initial foray seemed good. Then I'd be dissatisfied and try something else, then something else, and other products will get involved (DACs and amps), and at the end what I did was settle with an HD650 and Magni rather than the several thousands and even >$10k worth of stuff I went through. This lasted for months, and one time I even bought the same headphones twice before returning them both times. Even if I ended up with something more expensive, would you be ok with that?

What about the "smart ones" who'll sit on stuff for nearly a year and coincidentally upgrade or change flavor annually? I had a person tell me that he had a sort of an insurance plan for a graphics card with the Micro Center, and when the next gen card would come out he'd show up, in essence trade in the value of his old card, and deduct that from the price of the next gen card.

 

[lissimore]

Well, what I would do and in effect have done is not picking multiple pairs at a time as that's too much money but picking one pair that through my research or initial foray seemed good. Then I'd be dissatisfied and try something else, then something else, and other products will get involved (DACs and amps), and at the end what I did was settle with an HD650 and Magni rather than the several thousands and even >$10k worth of stuff I went through. This lasted for months, and one time I even bought the same headphones twice before returning them both times. Even if I ended up with something more expensive, would you be ok with that?

Yes. That's exactly how I am too.

It's your second example that is not using the policy for its intended purpose. If that pattern bore out over a few years we would stop selling to that individual. However, these really are edge cases as we have a personal relationship with most of our customers, i.e. it's a lot different than buying from Amazon where the policy dictates the behaviour.

 

[rutter]

I admire your good intentions and optimism and putting it to practice. Hopefully this ends up being sustainable even though some things I don't understand.

 

[yenrios]

Does the policy extends to international customers like French one ?

 

[lissimore]

Does the policy extends to international customers like French one ?

Yes it does, however there are a few products that we are not allowed to ship to France (we are limited by some of our vendors and export license).

 

[lissimore]

I admire your good intentions and optimism and putting it to practice. Hopefully, this ends up being sustainable even though some things I don't understand.

Thanks!

I understand the disbelief. When we initially considered offering a 365-day return policy we thought it was crazy too. However, I'm a giant spreadsheet nerd and I modeled out the worst-case scenarios. When I did that I realized that it's actually something we could do for the long-term.

CNET (Guttenberg) wrote an article about our return policy over a year ago which brought a lot of attention from people specifically wanting to use our return policy. It was an excellent stress test of the system. We've chosen a product mix that has high long-term resale value which is the main reason we're able to make it work.

 

[yenrios]

Yes it does, however there are a few products that we are not allowed to ship to France (we are limited by some of our vendors and export license).

very nice

 

[text]

I would also like to thank you for this policy specifically for my situation. I'm a 3-hour drive from the closest city where there would be headphones available to listen to firsthand.