Retailer Admits 'High Return Rate' on iPods


A report at Smarthouse reveals that a major Australian electronics retailer, Harvey Norman, admits to a "high return rate on iPods."

The story quotes Eric Bone, a Sandisk executive, who admittedly can't be said to be an unbiased source. Bone claims that Harvey Norman staff confessed to a high return rate on iPods.

"Australians are blindly paying for iPods, but my experience showed that a lot are being returned due to a problem with formats on pre-recorded libraries and, in particular, problems with WMA [Windows Media Audio]," Bone said.

Sandisk is launching a new challenge to the dominant iPod with three new MP3 players.

Analysis: Unsubstantiated. In the US and elsewhere, there's no evidence of a high return rate on iPods. Moreover, if the .wma bug really does begin to bite, it would be trivial for Apple to add this capability (and, let's face it, ultimately they will). Apple does often resist formats in favor of its own or own implementation (witness how long the company held out on introducing IDE drives, USB 2.0, CD/RW burning and DVD+R/RW support. Apple also preferred to the DVD-RAM solution initially, until it was clear that DVD-R was the format for the masses. If subscription .wma music really does gain some critical mass, that's when Apple will add .wma (and it would even be possible, via firmware updates, to put support into previous generation iPods. Just don't count on it.