JEDDAH, 13 October 2005 — Imagine for one moment that you run a retail shop. It does not have to be in a specific country as your fictional shop has the characteristics of a retail establishment anywhere in that you buy goods at one price and sell them for a profit. A customer comes in and buys a product from your shop. The retailer’s profit is made and he or she is able to reinvest it, pay wages or rent with it.
The purchaser then returns the goods — used and now not saleable as “new.” The retailer returns the full purchase price of the new goods and receives “used” goods in return.
It hardly makes sense, does it? Let us extend that a little further. The goods are returned in poor condition, and the purchaser has the absolute right to his full purchase price back. The retailer is left with unsaleable goods. Thus he loses not only the profit from his transaction — and therefore a contribution to his costs and wages — but he loses the investment price he paid for the goods in the first place.
Is that fair? Does the retailer have no rights? Does he not have the right to be protected from people who cannot make their minds up, cost him time and money and are able to take absolutely no responsibility at all for any purchasing decision, always able to rely on the retailer bailing him out? It seems not in Saudi Arabia if the newspaper reports are true — where the law is that the consumer can always have his money back without question.
Consumer law is usually based on the attempt to understand what, in these circumstances, the “reasonable man” would do and applies to both buyer and seller. Remember please that the retailer is also a consumer of wholesale goods.
The retailer is in business to sell things to make a living. He is not a free hire establishment there to provide a charitable service to the indecisive.
Having dealt closely with the Trading Standards Act (TSA) in the UK and the frankly dishonest retail customers out there, I have no doubt that things are the same in the Kingdom. However, the TSA usually works pretty well.
Goods may only be returned for a full refund if they “are not fit for the purpose for which they are intended.” That specifically excludes instances the customer changed his or her mind, decided they did not like the color or “Granny already had one like it.” In those instances, tough. The customer made the decision and the deal was done.
The TSA was designed to protect consumers against rogue traders selling faulty goods or against faulty goods accidentally sold by honest traders. I suggest that idea is taken on board here. Certainly if goods are faulty (and some most certainly are), or if a spanner is not “fit for the purpose” of unscrewing the nut it was designed to unscrew, then money back, no question.
The consumer must take the responsibility for the consequences of his own decisions, not lean on the bankroll of the retailer to indulge his vacillations or because he wants a freebie for the weekend. Let us get a clearly defined and publicly displayed set of rules in place based on what is reasonable for both parties and share the responsibility for items on sale between the two parties involved in any transaction.
