What is defective in retail? Well in our case it's when the product fails due to a manufacturing error. Examples of this would be a tounge not stitched to a shoe properly and coming off. Or a jacket where the zipper rips out of the seam. A hockey skate where a rivet pops out a week after buying them.
Hockey bags cut by a skate blade are not defects, "but the bag should withstand that". Really? let's take a knife to your seat cushion and then claim that as defective too...since it's the same thing.
Also, when you buy a bicycle, your tires are not covered under warranty, nor are your tubes, chain, cables, spokes or derailleur hangers. If your tube pops 3 months after buying the bike, that's pretty common. And please don't bring in a bike with car tire marks on it and paint smudges and try to tell us the frame being bent is a defect. Bike tires and tubes don't have a road hazard guarantee. And no we won't return a bike after 2 weeks and you left it outside in the rain. Nor if your son takes it out and literally scrapes 50% of the paint off, breaks the chain guard and then you bring it back to say "he was just riding and it fell off".
Scratched sunglasses are another one, the fact that sunglasses get scratched is not our fault, nor the fault of their manufacturer. The lens are not bulletproof (although lots of people seem to think so) and they can't withstand being assaulted by your keys while sharing your jacket pocket. Yet I'd say 7 out of 10 sunglasses that come back are scratched and the owner feels that that is a defect because "they shouldn't scratch after a week", well when SHOULD they scratch? Oh, and if you buy cotton sweat pants, wash them and put them in the dryer and they shrink 2 inches....please check the how to wash tags before actually washing them because when they shrink, that's the nature of the materiel, not a defective product.
Broken hockey sticks...oh boy, If I had a nickle...."I just stepped on the ice, took a shot and it shattered". Really. The first time you ever used it...It just exploded like the Death Star after Luke used the force (And a couple Photon Torpedo's)? There is almost always a skate cut, or something more to the story but we never get to hear that. I had a woman pissed at me because she bought a stick Friday, son played with it Saturday in Provincial playdowns and broke it in a game and got pissed when we didn't replace it, and this 2 weeks after the same model stick did the same thing on him, perhaps a different model might be an option here. They don't expire like milk. Their shelf life isn't 24 hours. She wasn't too pleased that I told her that she might want to tell her son to consider a different stick.
If your new golf driver doesn't hit it straight like you saw on TV, that's not the fault of the club sir. That's operator error. I've seen aluminum bats come back and they have a pretty decent bend to them, however when you try to explain to the owner that this is usually from hitting the ground in a downwards motion when your upset because you struck out playing slowpitch and not from hitting a ball, it isn't usually met with smiles and giggles.
If your brand new snowboard gets run over by a ski or another snowboard and the de-lamination is in a perfectly straight line running perpendicular to the wood fibers of the core, chances are it's not the fault of the way the board was constructed. That's a cut in the top sheet.
Bottom line is we are more that fair and reasonable when it comes to returns and defects, but please don't take advantage of it. If your honest and up front with us we will be more than happy to help fix the problem no matter what it takes.
