Dear Author has a devastating summary of ebook store policies in the US. From
Return and Redownload Policies for Ebook Purchases:
Quote:
Amazon
You can request a refund for any book purchased within the last seven days.
Kobo
I emailed and asked if they had a refund policy and while I received a response back asking that I clarify my question (how can it be more clear?), I never received an actual answer even though I did reply that I wanted to know whether there was a refund policy.
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The rest are closer to Kobo than to Amazon on refunds. All have reasonable redownload policies.
I understand that refunds are difficult for digital sales. I buy from Kobo on occasion and I have no expectation of a refund from them. I buy primarily from Amazon in part because of their refund policy, even though I have never asked for a refund.
This is a huge advantage for Amazon. I'm not sure if Amazon is eating the cost, or if they have better terms from the publishers, or if the fact that they can delete ebooks from an app or device gives them a unique advantage for refunds. Perhaps it is a bit of all three, but whatever it is Amazon has the right policy.
So far as I know, all publishers report refunds of ebooks to their authors although the figures I have seen reported are very low (less than 1 percent). These are presumably due to complaints about formatting etcetera, and so could be higher if an ebook is really badly formatted. Given agency pricing it is surprising that the policies are not clearer and more similar on defective ebooks.