Amazon Gifting turning into Returns???

My returns are unusually high this month. Apart from two that I know to be read and returns, I'm attributing them to people being unfamiliar with their new devices and the buy with one click button. (The other returns were pretty immediate.)

I don't think your loyal fans would do this to you.

Everyone's had higher returns this month, and we don't know why (though we do like to speculate!)

Rlyon said:

My returns are unusually high this month. Apart from two that I know to be read and returns, I'm attributing them to people being unfamiliar with their new devices and the buy with one click button. (The other returns were pretty immediate.)

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How did you know about the read and returns? I'm just curious and nosy.

Rlyon said:

My returns are unusually high this month. Apart from two that I know to be read and returns, I'm attributing them to people being unfamiliar with their new devices and the buy with one click button. (The other returns were pretty immediate.)

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Just wondering how you know the two to be read and returns? Not disputing it, I think it happens a lot more often than most people seem to give it credit. Edit: Mary beat me to it!

Betsy

I'm a bit of a report checking addict. (I shouldn't be because I don't sell that many!) Anyway, the second week in December had been very slow, and I hadn't sold anything for about four days, then I got a sale on my first book. 24hrs later, I had a return, accompanied by a sale of the second book. The second book was also returned the next day. Readers have commented many times how they could not put my books down and have read them in a day, so although obviously I will never know for certain, I always suspect read and returns when this kind of activity is the only movement my account sees in a week.

Thankfully, the first week and the two subsequent ones were much better!

I don't believe you can return a gift. I accidentally gifted a book to my shared kindle (that's how I buy since the account is under my sisters email address) .... actually, I accidentally gifted MY book to our kindle. *snort* Even calling Amazon they wouldn't let me return it.

I remember when I got my Kindle, the first few weeks I did a lot of mistaken one-clicking when I meant to sample. So I wouldn't be surprised if all the new Kindle owners are just having a learning curve. (I never returned any of the books I bought by mistake becaus emost were in hte 99 cent range, but if I'd bought something for $9.99, I definitely would have returned them.)

I seem to recall higher-than-average returns around this time last year, too.

I suspect several things, including people unfamiliar with devices and the "read and return."

One is that some people realize they could "borrow" a book at no cost so they return it and borrow. Others either see it free or see that tens of thousands of books are being made free and figure they will either "just wait for it to be free" or else go get a similar free one instead. And I know for a fact that a LOT of people see "Prime $0.00" and mistakenly think a book is free--and Amazon doesn't do a very good job of explaining it, for whatever reason (bound to be the usual conspiracy...)

How could 43,000 free books a day not be impacting the behavior? If you read some reader threads (where there are no writers), you can get a real insight into what people pay and what they think books are "worth," particularly indie books. 2013 will be one wild ride!

scottnicholson said:

How could 43,000 free books a day not be impacting the behavior? If you read some reader threads (where there are no writers), you can get a real insight into what people pay and what they think books are "worth," particularly indie books. 2013 will be one wild ride!

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NOW can I say "I told you so"... ?

I'm averaging 1 return for every 10 sales it seems, never had this rate before so I'm glad to read that I'm not alone in seeing this. This has only been since Christmas.